


Time And Relative Mischief in Space

by Taranea



Category: Doctor Who, Thor - All Media Types
Genre: Adventure, And the Doctor thinks that's brilliant, Friendship, Gen, Humor, Jotunn | Frost Giant, Loki Needs a Hug, Loki is a, Mild Hurt/Comfort, The Doctor needs his TARDIS back, This combination is actually terrifying, We can't destroy this world Loki we're saving it
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-01-28
Updated: 2017-03-01
Packaged: 2018-01-10 08:00:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 23,795
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1157098
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Taranea/pseuds/Taranea
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rose was lost, Martha left, Astrid even died. It's a lonely Doctor that wonders what exactly just went BONK! against his TARDIS, and when he finds out that his visitor claims to be Loki, the God of Mischief, well... </p><p>Curious, the Doctor offers him a ride. Unfortunately, Loki decides he wants to go the roots of Yggdrasil. And things...don't go exactly as planned.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Catch Him If You Can

**Author's Note:**

> Hi THERE and welcome to this fic! This is technically a crossover of both Thor and Doctor Who, but really, it's more of a story about Loki and the Doctor, i.e., two mad men in a box.
> 
> Or rather, without a box, as it will soon become apparent, when it will also turn into quite a problem.
> 
> But yeah, anyway, happy to have you here along for the ride. For Loki, this li'l madcap ride kicks off right after the first Thor movie, and for the Doctor right after Voyage of the Damned. Please enjoy! :D

_"No, Loki."_

Loki was still falling. Had been falling. Would be falling forever.

And he didn't even care.

_"No, Loki._ "

Odin hadn't roared the words. He had spoken so quietly. And just like that, so softly, so irreparably, Loki's last, desperate appeal had been crushed.

There was no hope for him now, no chance to ever repair what he had done.

And, realizing that, he had finally let go.

_Falling..._

It hadn't even felt like falling, at first - it had felt like weightless drifting, like lightly floating, and only Thor's anguished face, his uselessly outstretched hand and the shattered edge of the Bifrost receding into the vast distance gave him any real feeling of motion. It was surprisingly gentle, or would have been, if his heart weren't in such turmoil.

And then the tendrils of the universe had wrapped around him and oh, Loki _fell_.

The void was tearing at him, fierce winds howling in absolute, surreal silence, enough to drive anyone mad who wasn't already. He was cold, oh so cold, his blood perhaps already frozen, and he thought it was bitter irony that his very nature as a Jotun that had caused him to lose everything was perhaps the one thing now that prevented him losing his life, too.

Was this to be his punishment, then? Falling, plummeting, rushing downwards in endless space forever, through the empty and senseless void until his mind would simply give up and _break_?

Fitting. _Let him who is nothing rejoin the nothing in its most pure and absolute form_ , an icy voice in his head supplied.

Nothing.

Nothing forever...

_...wait._

Loki's shut eyes had blinked open again. Had there just been a noise?

A...strange noise...

Loki's face creased into the tiniest frown, his lips trying to recreate the sound he had just heard...

"' _Vworp Vworp'_?"

And that was as far as he came, because _then_ his own remaining breath was suddenly knocked out of his lungs as his back collided with something _hard._ Whatever it was, it then seemed to break underneath him, because he could feel it give and then himself tumble through it, into it, and the next thing he knew _everything_ around him had just exploded into existence.

Colours and sound were suddenly there again, assaulting his numbed senses after the void like a caleidoscope gone mad, but his lungs immediately seemed to realize there was now _air_ and sucked it in greedily with a gasp. Loki still had no idea where he was, flailing wildly as his movement seemed to not have stopped so much but instead become suddenly a _lot_ more painful as he was knocked against something and then fell through something else, and just when his brain had registered that in between the air and the pain and the things surrounding him, that yes, he was undeniably _alive,_ before he could actually do something about it there was _splash!_ and Loki Odinsson, Trickster, Liesmith, God of Mischief and the Prince of Asgard had landed headfirst in a swimming pool.

xxx

The Doctor was having a boring day. It had been a while since Martha had left and even though he was already beginning to wish there was somebody around to talk to and be clever at, he hadn't yet really found it in himself to go and find somebody to travel with. Thinking of Astrid also always sharply reminded him that his companions did not always meet with the kindest fates, which...left him a bit reluctant to take anybody in at the moment.

But without company, the TARDIS was...empty.

And, even if you could go anywhere and to any place in the universe, sometimes, the Doctor thought, a day could still be simply... _boring_.

Fortunately, it took a turn for the interesting approximately five seconds after when a man (or at least, a man-shaped being – this was the TARDIS and one could never be sure) crashed through his space ship's doors.

The Doctor's eyes grew wide. "What!"

Before he could do anything, his involuntary visitor had whirled through the control room in a tangle of limbs, wide eyes and an utter disrespect for gravity, and then proceeded to bounce off the console in a way that would have looked rather comical if it hadn't probably also been rather painful.

The Doctor stumbled backwards. "What?!"

Next, the TARDIS apparently decided to be helpful, because she abruptly shook like a rodeo bull and as a result the alien then crashed straight through the _other_ door, until a loud splashing noise indicated where precisely his journey had ended.

Not even bothering with a third customary 'What!' the Doctor had already taken off running.

xxx

Loki gasped, and struggled, and would have screamed if water hadn't rushed into his mouth the moment he tried.

_If this is the afterlife, it is missing a certain amount of dignity_ , shot through Loki's head, and for a moment he wondered whether he should transfom into a salmon or maybe simply let himself drown, but then his head already broke the surface, and, indeed, his feet came to stand on solid ground.

He then water was approximately four feet deep and came up to a point slightly higher than his navel.

Right. So drowning here would have looked potentially rather silly.

Well. Not that standing like a drenched poodle in full battle armour in what was apparently some sort of extravagant bathtub had ever had the potential for a lot of _gravitas_ in the first place.

Loki looked around, blinking water out of his eyes and absentmindedly picking his helmet out of the water that had left his head in the fall.

Where was this? A bath of some sort? Was this a joke by the universe?

The room he found himself in was wide and circular, the floor, ceiling and walls seeming to be covered in the same golden-hued tiles. The hexagon-shaped bath he was standing in measured perhaps sixty feet across, the water looking deeper at the other end. The entire architecture certainly looked different than anything Loki had ever seen on any realm.

_Where am I?_

His eyes fell upon a ladder at the side of the bath and, after a few shaky attempts, he even managed to marshal his bruised, tired and cramping body into obedience to take a few swaying steps toward it and climb out of the pool. Up here he could see the door he had to have come flying through and wondered whether he should try and hide somewhere until he knew where he was or wait a bit to see whether he could get some of his strength back first. Next, that decision was already taken from his hands, though, as then running footsteps were starting to be heard and they seemed to be headed right for him. Loki instinctively tensed and felt himself shifting into a more battle-ready stance, internally cursing himself that he had let go of his spear now. He felt too weak to trust in his magic and that meant he was reduced to the few throwing daggers concealed beneath his clothing.

But then again, now that he was listening more closely, the footsteps only sounded like one pair of legs and those not even like heavy boots or armoured footwear, rather more...

"Oy! Who are you and how did you get in here?"

Loki stared. The...man who had just burst through the door did not look like a soldier or a guard.

But he also hadn't expected someone who looked like an accountant in a tizzy.

Before Loki could say anything, the man had already stopped himself a few feet from the other, and then for some reason donned a pair of glasses and waved a... _rather pitiful wand_? a voice in Loki's head supplied.

He instinctively stepped backwards, wanting to bring a spell up in defence, but then also realized that the thing glowing a light blue at him was not magical in nature.

But it did seem to tell the other something, because his eyes immediately widened even more, and his face split into a (from Loki's perspective) rather worrying grin.

" _A frost giant!_ " he exclaimed.

"...excuse me?" Loki croaked, mostly because he a) was currently reeling, since he had never expected anyone to see through his disguise and b) had never expected anyone to react to this realization with quite that much enthusiasm.

"That's what you are, a genuine frost giant!" The other was carrying on, seemingly completely ignoring Loki but still grinning like a lunatic, "Coldest creatures in the universe, you lot are, not particularly known for your warm welcomes, either, but biggest ice palaces this side of the Medusa Cascade. Oh, you're _beautiful_..." but then he he trailed off and his grin started to actually transform into a frown. "...though you don't actually _look_ like a frost giant. Why don't you look like a frost giant?" He cocked his head and sniffed. "You're supposed to be blue," he added helpfully. His tone actually wasn't unlike a school teacher's in art class who was asking Loki why he hadn't gotten the colour right in a painting of a giraffe.

Loki stared. For all he knew, he was in a strange place he did not recognize, his magic was not functioning properly, everything hurt, he was soaking wet, and the presumed ruler of his unknown surroundings seemed to be stark raving mad.

And also someone who knew way too much. Loki didn't know whether this man had any ties to Asgard or Jotunheim, didn't know why he was so pleased to have found him and didn't know what he planned to do with that knowledge. But then, the other seemed to sense his unease, because the scrutinizing expression dropped away with some of the manic energy, both to be replaced with a more relaxed expression and a friendly smile.

"Oh. Sorry. I think I'm being rude. You're completely soaked and I haven't offered you a towel, even. And I of all people should know one can't always choose their appearance, I suppose," he said, the last as a muttered aside, before he offered his guest an apologetic shrug. "Always wanted to be ginger, myself, you know?"

Again, Loki blinked, a bit more slowly this time, the drenched god appearing as if hoping that things would make sense again when he opened his eyes once more. They didn't.

"But yeah, anyway, I'm the Doctor, we're in my...home, I suppose, so I should probably offer you a cup of tea. You're not going to melt, are you? Sorry, bit of a badly timed joke. Bad habit," he grimaced, before perking up again, "But you might want a change of clothes, can't imagine anyone wants to stand around being soaked. And what you're wearing doesn't look very comfortable. Especially that helmet," the man who had called himself the Doctor pointed out and raised an eye brow. "Don't you bonk it in door frames a lot?"

"...no," Loki managed his first active contribution to the bizarre conversation. If all of this had turned out to be one single, insane prank at this point he would not have been surprised, if only for the fact that he couldn't think of anyone beside himself who would actually be able to come up with such a ridiculous scenario.

"Right," the other said, as if he hadn't even heard the reply, and cocked his head. "But yeah, your get-up all seems rather..." - his mouth twisted a bit, as if something tasted bad - "... _martial_. Who are you?"

Loki took a breath. "Loki -" he began, then paused for barely a second, before he caught himself again. " - I am Loki."

"Loki?" A spark of recognition seemed to flash through the eyes of the man calling himself the Doctor, and his eye brows rose a little. "Loki as in, Loki the god?"

Loki drew himself up instinctively, feeling some semblance of poise returning and taking to it like a fish to water. "The very same."

The Doctor grinned brightly. "The one who gave birth to a horse, right?"

The temperature in the pool room seemed to immediately drop just a few degrees.

xxx

"Hey, nothing wrong with horses, honest," the Doctor added quickly, trying to defuse the situation as glibly as he could, "I, uh, almost married one. Once." He rubbed his chin. "But yeah, not one of my better ideas..."

"Are you from Midgard?" Loki interrupted him, now seeming more irritated than angry, which was a start, the Doctor supposed.

"Midgard...?" The Doctor blinked for a moment, before realizing what the other meant, "...oh. Oh, I see. No. I'm from...somewhere else entirely. I visit that place a lot, though. That where I could take you?" _Meant to visit that place anyway, that strange weight loss company basically reeks of someone tampering with that planet again..._

"…"

The Doctor interrupted his train of thought when he realized his guest hadn't replied. Instead, the dark-haired man who had just claimed to be Loki, the God of Mischief, just seemed to be tired and wet and slightly lost for a moment, before he noticed the Doctor's gaze on him and immediately it was as if a mask slid over his features again, obscuring any trace of emotion the Doctor thought he had just glimpsed.

_Well. If that isn't not suspicious at all._

In fact, the Doctor had felt slightly uneasy around Loki from the start, but without being able to pinpoint exactly why. The armour, the guarded expression, the concealed knives he had been able to spot, even the, well, honestly slightly silly helmet, all suggested that this was an individual who had scarce reason to trust others and probably rarely found himself in peaceful circumstances.

But because he was the Doctor, he still saw all this and said,

"...or how about a cup of tea and that towel first?"

_To be continued..._


	2. Tea With A Trickster

Loki was towelling his head dry, and dearly wished that things would maybe somehow look better when his hair did.

He supposed he shouldn't be surprised when they didn't.

Loki dropped the towel with a sigh onto the bed and looked around. His host calling himself the Doctor had led him out of the pool room into a corridor with several hexagonal – Loki sensed a theme here – doors leading off at its sides.

"There's a guest room here...I think – yeah, that's where she put it today. You can dry off and get changed, I'll put the kettle on."

With that slightly mystifying comment he had stopped next to a door that slid open and revealed a small, but tidy room with a bed and wardrobe inside.

"For clothes, have a look inside the closet. She'll probably know what you need," the Doctor had said, and with that last strange remark had left Loki on his own, "Find me in the kitchen when you're done. Or, well, probably let the kitchen find you."

The Asgardian wondered a bit whether he had maybe died after all and maybe gone to a place that was solely meant for deceased people who had been slightly mad.

The door had closed behind him, but opened again when he stepped close to it, so he really did seem to be a guest rather than a prisoner. The room also looked elegant, furnished with a table, a nightstead, a...bunkbed for some reason, and a carpet and a sink, all tasteful and in warm colours, if slightly alien in design. He wondered if this was a palace, then, and for a moment there were were memories again, and with them the guilt, fear, grief, shameanger _loss-!_

...and Loki had to consciously breathe and calm down again before everything connected with memories of his former home could run together into one insurmountable wave that threatened to drown him.

_No. Focus. Things at hand that can be done first._

'She will know what you need', the Doctor had said. She? Loki had looked around, expecting perhaps to see a maid of some sort, which would cement his host's status as some kind of ruler further, but couldn't see anyone. Frowning, he stepped over to the wardrobe and opened it, and then couldn't decide whether to be alarmed or pleased, because most of the clothes inside eerily looked a lot like what he would have chosen for himself, if he could.

Well.

Perhaps apart from the thing in the corner that inexplicably appeared to be a carrot costume, but other than that...

The dominating colours in the wardrobe were green, gold, black and grey, and its contents featured both Midgardian suits as well as Asgardian robes and leathers – but interestingly enough nothing that even remotely resembled any kind of battle armour.

Loki reached inside, briefly hesitating between a sharp-cut suit and a pleasingly patterned robe.

His host, at least, had dressed like a Midgardian – _albeit a slightly strange one_ , Loki amended in his mind. The prince of Asgard might not have paid _that_ much attention to fashion during his visit to Earth when he had been mostly busy trying to stomp Thor into its miserable dusty ground, but even he knew that if you were wearing a pinstripe suit, you wouldn't add...well, whatever his shoes were trying to be.

_In fact, I suppose even Thor would know that one._

"Right." Loki's hands clenched briefly, before he grabbed the suit with rather more force than necessary and put the helmet firmly down on the table, not looking at it.

He had tried to magic himself some dry armour into existence, but the effort had only left him with a sharp headache. Now the bed seemed almost inviting, even if his strange host was expecting him in the kitchen...

_Yes, brilliant idea, Loki Liesmith. Go to sleep in the fortress of a potential madman, why don't you?_

Loki's face briefly screwed itself up into a grimace of distaste. Very well, then. He would have to deal with this in the manual way. With another sigh, he unbuckled the soaked armour, then hesitated briefly before slipping off the rest of his clothes and drying himself off as quickly as he could. Technically, there was little point to his hurrying – he was vulnerable here one way or another, but the other also hadn't yet done anything that Loki could construe as threatening, even if he tried. He hadn't been searched, he had been allowed to keep his knives, and neither a guard nor a servant had been sent as an obvious way to keep an eye on him. In fact, now that Loki thought about it, he hadn't even seen anyone else since they had come here. If this man was a ruler, where were his subjects? But if there _weren't_ any servants here who had prepared the room...?

_None of this has been magicked into existence. There isn't an enchanted or glamoured object in the entire chamber_ , Loki thought as he brushed over the bed and the clothes and the furniture pieces, none of them registering to his senses as anything but utterly ordinary.

Well. This was intriguing at least. Something to busy himself with so he didn't have to think about...

Resolutely, Loki cut that train of thought off and instead started dressing himself in the dark grey suit he had selected to match the clothes of his host, again wondering where this Doctor could hail from. Even though he had denied it, his accent indicated that he was from the place Midgardians called England...

And.

Well.

Maybe the fact that he had been offered tea almost instantly had also been a clue.

But then again, for some reason some people on Earth had also insisted that _he_ sounded like he was a resident of this 'Britain' place as well, so maybe he shouldn't put that much stock in perceived accents.

Loki brushed his hair back and slung a tie around his neck, for some reason feeling as if this would be armour for an entirely different battle as he left the guest room in search for his mysterious host.

xxx

The mysterious host in question was currently not that mysterious, but rather staring at a scanner, frowning and, apparently a bit lost in thought, because he was chewing on one end of his screwdriver. (Which, to be honest, ruined that whole mystery-aura anyway).

"Hmmm..." the screw driver was removed as the Doctor pushed the screen aside and leaned back on the seat in front of the console. The TARDIS scans were in accordance with what he had found earlier. The alien he had picked up was definitely a frost giant, but readings of his travels indicated Asgard origin. And he had claimed to be Loki, the God of Mischief...

"...Doctor?"

"Yeah? Up here," The Time Lord raised his head as his guest had entered the console room, signalling him to step closer with a wave. "So, you showing up, that supposed to mean the world is ending, then? Will I have to start looking out for giant snakes or keep a generous supply of dog food ready?" he asked.

Green eyes stared at him, perhaps with a bit more of honest surprise than their owner had intended.

"...excuse me, _what_?" Loki asked after a moment.

xxx

"Says here you're supposed to be around at Ragnarok.," the Doctor said, slapping a thick book that lay on the strange contraption before him. "End of the world, _ba-da-boom_ , the Twilight Of The Gods," he said, eye brows wiggling before he sat up abruptly from the – _were those car seats?-_ swinging his legs off the console and bouncing to his feet, perhaps just a bit too disturbingly cheerful for someone announcing the apocalypse.

In his hands he now held the large tome, a beautifully bound book as a part of Loki's mind registered, and for a brief moment the magician had the feeling the title was in a language he didn't know, all strange circles and dots, but the impression was gone in a flash, the embossed letters on the cover now only reading 'Fate of the Gods' in Asgardian script.

Loki felt rather sure that this book was written in anything but Asgardian.

But still, when the other held it out, he reached for the beautiful book instinctively, almost reverently, perhaps only imagining the...flash of approval? that seemed to show in his host's eyes at this reaction. He filed that information away for later out of habit, even if he as of yet had no idea what he was supposed to do with it. Ignoring it for now, Loki opened the book instead and scanned the pages, running his hand over the letters. His eye ridges rose when he caught his own name and those of Odin, Freya, Frigga, Thor and others. They were printed (painted?) in an elaborate, beautiful script and illustrated at some point with what looked like...woodcut pictures...

"They seem to have captured your hat rather well. Fancy that."

Loki glanced up from the page sharply, narrowed green eyes boring into entirely too innocent brown ones. For a brief, strange moment, he didn't even know whether to feel offended or to laugh. But there had been no malice or condescension in the other's tone and how long had it been since somebody had simply teased him without a mean streak in it...?

"So, about that business about the world ending...?" the Doctor prompted him when it became apparent Loki seemed to have hit some sort of mental roadblock, and the sorcerer had to force himself to focus again. He shook his head.

"Entirely fictional. There seem to be some naming similarities, yes, but apart from that it all seems to have been written by Midgardians with..." he gave a somewhat irritated wave, "...slightly too much enthusiasm for the subject."

"Fiction written by fans, huh?" the Doctor asked, and for some reason Loki briefly felt like a joke had just soared over his head.

xxx

"If that's how you want to put it, yes."

"Okay, then." The Time Lord shrugged. "No world-saving today. It was getting rather dull, to be honest."

In truth, the Doctor could probably have figured the answer to that question. He had been suspecting that there was some sort of connection between the actual planet Asgard and the Earth myths about Norse gods, but had doubted they contained much more factual information apart from the fact that they existed and had visited Earth once – especially since they read exactly as they would if you had a bunch of armour-clad aliens show up in full battle mode above a horde of drunk vikings.

_And then proceed to smash the living daylights out of some ice giants, yeah_. _One of which is currently alive and on my ship. Which begs the question..._

"So how come you crashed into my TARDIS – that's where we are, by the way - mid-flight? Not many people manage that."

Loki briefly looked at him like he seemed to weigh two different options in his head, calculating, staring at the Doctor as if he was trying to figure something out.

"...I fell."

"You fell?" The Doctor cocked his head, and then decided to take a chance. "Off the Bifrost?"

"Yes," Loki replied, and then curiously almost looked panicky as if that word had escaped before he had been able to stop it.

"Ouch," the Doctor commented with a sympathetic wince. "Blimey, I always said they should put some handrails on that thing. Honestly, big, psychedelic rainbow bridge over an endless chasm is just asking for trouble, I mean, just look at Mario Kart – oy, you alright?"

xxx

"...I have been better," Loki replied honestly, also feeling like he was starting to develop a headache now. He still wasn't sure how this man could know an uncanny amount about his world, but at the same time talk so much utter _nonsense_.

"Oh. Yeah. Sorry. I think I offered you a cup of tea, didn't I? Let's go to the kitchen," the Doctor said, at the same time taking the thick book again and starting to head down the stairs. For want of anything better to do, and because the promise of a soothing drink was actually starting to sound more appealing by the minute, Loki followed him.

"So...you're a doctor?" he asked. "A doctor of what? Medicine?"

The other threw him a grin over his shoulder.

"Just the Doctor. I'm a doctor of everything."

Loki frowned. In his limited experience, doctorates didn't work that way, but perhaps they did on whatever world his host hailed from.

"There you go," the other said as he handed him a steaming mug when as they reached what probably qualified as a kitchen but which was, again, devoid of anyone but them. "It's English Breakfast tea." He took a sip from a second mug himself and then drew a grimace. "Well. English Breakfast tea like they tried to reproduce it centuries later on planet Sto, where they sadly got their historical sources a bit mixed up and as a result this tastes like liquid beans on toast. With porridge. Sorry."

"It's... _interesting_." Loki, who had always been the most diplomatic of his family, tried very carefully to keep his voice even.

"Is it," the Doctor says neutrally, but his brown eyes flashed with warm amusement as he met Loki's over his own mug of hot terribleness. For a moment, Loki was tempted to snort or smile back, but kept himself in check – nobody had even so much as joked about something as trivial as terrible food with him for a while now, it...wasn't something people liked to do with him, and expecting it from a stranger couldn't possibly end well. Loki gripped the mug with a little more force than necessary and took another swallow, because if the liquid only scalded his throat badly enough, the tight feeling there would probably go away.

The Doctor seemed to sense the change in Loki's mood, because he took another breath and then motioned for them both to sit at the table, perhaps in another attempt to make them more comfortable.

"Well. Culinary highs and lows of the cosmos aside, anywhere in particular you'd want me to drop you off?" he asked. "My ship can go anywhere, so if you'd like to go back home to Asgard or..." his eyes briefly trailed over the exposed skin of Loki's hands, before the Doctor met his gaze again, his expression careful, questioning, "...Jotunheim...?"

Loki could feel himself stiffen, and had to briefly fight the urge to hide his bare hands, avert his face, because that would have given too much away. "No," he said instead, forcing his voice not to sound too hoarse. "Not there."

"Not going home again?" The Doctor raised his eye brows.

"I'm like you, Doctor," Loki replied, coolly. "I don't have a home."

It had been a gamble. But he was Loki, and he always won.

For once, the Doctor's face briefly stilled, brown eyes hardening, a miniature slip in that cheerful mask of the other.

"...I see," the Doctor finally said, quietly, before he seemed to swallow and try to return to normal, but a bit of the friendliness seemed to have gone from his expression and tone now. Loki felt a small sting when he realized this, and _then_ felt like kicking himself because this – the alien's feeling's, his own feelings about him liking him or not - shouldn't _matter_.

"Anywhere else you'd like to go, then?" the Doctor asked, tone casual on the surface, but guarded underneath.

_Yes,_ Loki thought, b _ack in time to fix things,_ he would have liked to say, but didn't. It was a silly idea and for children. His family – _the people who pretended to be your family_ – would not want to see him again and that was the way it would stay.

xxx

"I...hadn't thought about it," Loki said after a few moments had passed and it sounded like a confession. "I think Midgard – or Earth to you, I suppose – would be suitable."

"Earth, huh?" the Doctor repeated the word, but sounded less than enthused about the idea than he had earlier. Mostly because of that fact that being one himself, the Time Lord thought he knew what a trouble magnet looked like, and if his instincts were right, and you imagined trouble as lightning, then Loki was the equivalent of a wet man with a copper rod standing atop a hill in a thunderstorm, holding up a sign saying 'ALL GODS ARE BASTARDS'.

_And that's taking into account that he says he's one of them himself,_ a voice added in the Doctor's head with a humourless snort.

_No. It's bad enough that you bring your own monsters with you every time you visit, going to Earth and unleashing a self-proclaimed alien trickster god that has clearly just been in a fight with Rassilon knows what and barely made it out alive would be pushing it, even for you._ Loki was clever, the Doctor could see that. Clever, and brilliant, and scared and hurt and obviously angry, and wasn't _that_ a promising combination...

"Okay, and are there any _other_ places you'd like to go?" the Doctor asked carefully.

Loki raised an eye brow. "You offered to take me to Midgard earlier," he said, and it almost sounded like a slight accusation.

"I changed my mind," the Doctor replied, flippantly and now there was a definite flash of annoyance in the eyes of the other, much more badly masked than the others had been. For some reason, the Time Lord was getting the vibe that Loki wasn't really used to getting that answer.

"I see," the Asgardian replied, stiffly setting the tea down and not touching it anymore. His tone was definitely cold and distant now, void of the earlier emotion that had started to appear. "Would you consent to drop me anywhere else then, or am I to understand I am your prisoner?"

There was a pause. The Doctor looked at him, also trying to keep his face as neutral as possible as he wondered how to phrase what he would say next to not make this any worse. Even dressed in a finely cut suit, his movements and phrasings so obviously educated and refined...any time his affable demeanour slipped, there was _something_ about him that suggested what you were really looking at was a wounded and cornered animal, ready to either bolt or attack. The frost giant's eyes were burning with a fierce, raw intelligence, but also just a touch of madness if you looked deep enough. His entire body language was also wary and guarded, as if their owner hadn't come to expect kindness from anyone in a while now...

...and the Doctor all at once felt like he had been punched in the stomach, because _now_ he couldn't help but be reminded of a _different_ face he once knew, that had been just as intelligent and mad and desperate, and that he had failed so badly he still hadn't been able to forgive himself.

_You mean, you're just gonna...KEEP me?!_

"...no." The Doctor let his face consciously relax again a bit, though he noted that Loki's stance did not become less stiff, or his expression any warmer – _Rassilon, what happened to him to make him this suspicious?_ \- "No, I'm not planning to... _keep_ you if you want to leave," the Doctor said, watching the Asgardian, before he carefully picked his next words.

"But if you have nothing better to do at the moment...why not stay for a while?"

_That_ provoked a reaction. For a moment, Loki even looked younger again, which seemed to happen when something had surprised him.

"Stay?" he asked. "In your palace?"

There was a noise that sounded like a mechanical choke and the Doctor suddenly laughed.

"... _palace_?!" he repeated. "Oh, it's a long time since she's been called _that_ , the old girl, but good going." He winked. "I think she definitely likes you now."

When Loki of course only looked more confused at this answer, the Time Lord relented a bit and smiled.

"No, this isn't my palace," he said. "Sorry, guess I should have cleared that up earlier. Come on," he said, rising from the table and striding back into the room with the column in the middle and the tables containing switches and what looked like the contents of a Midgardian junkyard sale arranged in a circle around it. The Doctor strode up to it and started flicking a few of them, looking back at Loki as he continued talking. "Way I see it, palaces are for rulers and I don't do..." he trailed off and gave a small, unwilling handwave "...that sort of thing. No. This is my ship," he said, letting the 'p' sound plop at the end of the sentence. "My space ship. She's called the TARDIS. Can materialize anywhere and materialize anything, including, but not limited to, terrible breakfast tea and snazzy suits." He grinned. "And she can go wherever you like...except I'd appreciate it if you wanted to go anywhere that isn't Earth. That planet already gets more alien interference than it should," he added with a bit of a lopsided smile while he hoped that Loki would accept that explanation for why he was reluctant to take him to his first choice of port.

xxx

Loki pursed his lips. The gears in his mind were already whirling, presenting him with several possible scenarios and plans of action. Truthfully, landing on Midgard would have had its advantages – he _could_ travel between worlds without using the Bifrost, yes, but if he used those secret paths he knew, he was still limited to the nine main worlds – Hel, Niflheim, Svartalfheim, Muspellsheim, Jotunheim, Midgard, Vanaheim, Alfheim, and of course, Asgard - connected to each other by the branches of Yggdrasil and if he _wasn't_ on any of those, he was stuck. On the other hand, the _downside_ of landing on any of those worlds (save Midgard) was that they were either all populated by people wanting him dead, or people under Asgard's authority, in which case, see first point.

If he _really_ wanted to go to Midgard, he supposed, he could still try to incapacitate or kill the Doctor, and then try and figure out how to fly this strange contraption that he called his ship, but...for some reason that plan didn't seem as appealing as it should.

_He offered to take you along for a while. Why don't you gain his trust and see where that goes?_ a voice in his head supplied and Loki seized upon that idea eagerly, especially as he was glad that it meant he didn't have to think upon that strange flash of reluctance he had felt when pondering to harm his host or steal his ship.

Loki turned his gaze on the Doctor again. "Your ship can go wherever, you say?"

For some reason, the Doctor now looked as if he was really regretting his earlier words.

"Well... _technically_ yes, but..."

"Then I want to go to the roots of Yggdrasil."

And a part of Loki was really enjoying the bit where the Doctor now looked positively seasick.

"You...you really want to go...?"

Loki gave a dismissive wave. "I'd like you to know I'm not planning to _do_ anything there. I'm just..." he hesitated, for what he estimated to be just the right amount of time to sound genuine, "...curious. To see if it can be done."

The Doctor didn't reply immediately, just looked at him, silently – and for a moment Loki had the extremely uncomfortable sensation that the man had just read his thoughts _and what if that is true, you don't even know what species he is_ , flashed through his mind, because suddenly he also noticed that even if the Doctor looked like a human in his thirties, those eyes of his looked _old,_ and for another moment Loki wondered whether by falling from the Bifrost and crashing into the spaceship of a madman, he had just come across the first person in the universe who just might be able to match him.

And _now_ Loki could feel a small tendril of panic creeping up inside him, because if the Doctor would realize what kind of monster he had let into his ship, before Loki had been able to figure out what had happened to his magic, before he had a proper weapon, before he would be able to _defend_ himself-

And then that entire train of thought was once again cut short abruptly as from one second to the next the Doctor was now flashing him a wide grin and called. "Alright then! To the roots of Yggdrasil the World Tree it is – _Allôns-y_!"

And before Loki could say anything else, the Doctor had pulled down a lever, and the god of mischief was flung through the room with the pillar for the second time this day, only idly wondering whether it wouldn't have been better if he'd just continued falling through the damn void.

_To be continued..._


	3. A Cold Welcome

The inside of the TARDIS was currently feeling as if the space ship was a barrel, and the Doctor had decided to push them down the Niagara falls.

" _What the Nine is happening?!"_

"Sorry!" The Doctor called over, holding onto the controls with the ease of a seasoned TARDIS flyer, while Loki was hanging off one of the coral support beams and looked like someone trying to stay on his feet while balancing on a greased rodeo bull.

"Not the easiest place to hit, the roots of Yggdrasil!", the Doctor shouted in an apologetic tone. The fact that he then proceeded to start hitting the controls of his space ship with a _hammer_ didn't help Loki's confidence any.

But of course, Loki also knew that the Doctor was right about the roots of the World Tree not the easiest place to get to...mostly because they weren't a real place at all.

Loki had thought about trying to visit there before, simply as an exercise in magic (he knew it was possible, because the Allfather had done it) but had not yet made concrete plans to do so. But what he had understood already was that Yggdrasil's roots didn't "exist" in the same, physical way that the other nine realms did. Oh, they were real enough, the source of all energy and matter in that corner of the universe that was Asgard and all its surrounding worlds, but they were more of a...state, a single point in an imagined system of coordinates of quantum and magic, and to get there was not about _going_ somewhere, but rather...bringing yourself into alignment with the way Yggdrasil had woven herself into the world, and then turning toward the source of where she grew.

Loki had once tried to explain the process to Thor, but had only been rewarded with a stare that suggested Thor thought his younger brother _really_ needed to find a maiden, and that had been the end of Loki ever speaking of that topic again.

But the fact remained that Yggdrasil was not so much a place, but rather the _idea_ of one - a visual metaphor, something your brain would show you instead of what was really there when you had slipped between the folds of the universe and managed to behold her, because no sense of a living being had ever been made to perceive the raw magic, power and firmament that was the World Tree.

Of course, in that same way, even the word 'tree' was only another metaphor, but it was a way of thinking about it that worked, so Loki didn't mind using the expression. He also expected that when he got there his mind _would_ actually show him something like an impossible, towering, mad kind of tree with branches twisting like snakes trying to reach a sky infinitely removed.

He also expected his brain to insist there were the _other_ things from all the legends, ballads and nursery tales he had ever heard, like the squirrel Ratatosk whisking up the trunk vanishing in the distant crown, or, up above, the blind eagle Veorfollnir circling. In fact, seeing them should be inevitable, simply because of that habit all minds had, which was that when you _expected_ to see something, you usually did.

And then the TARDIS landed with a shuddering jolt that nearly threw Loki off his feet completely, and when he had managed to make his way out of the door, he also learned the lesson that most companions learn eventually, which was that when you're travelling with the Doctor, you hardly ever see what you expected at all.

xxx

"Theeeere we go! Good girl," the Doctor patted the console affectionately when the TARDIS had stilled once more. Truth be told, he hadn't been too sure about being able to land where Loki wanted to go – he as well knew that Yggdrasil was more an idea of a place than a physical spot, but he _also_ knew that if there was anything that could potentially take them there, it would be his ship. He released the controls, straightened the jacket of his suit again and chanced a glance over at his visitor – currently, Loki seemed to be muttering something incomprehensible about this situation being 'worse than that time when the great oaf tried to leash a dozen harpies to his 'flying sled'' but he also appeared unhurt, so the Doctor only threw him a cheerful

"Well then! You coming?" and, grabbing his large brown coat, strode toward the door to throw it open.

The Doctor's first thought was that if this was an _idea_ of a place, someone could do with warmer thoughts.

"Huh." the Time Lord said, looking around the area they had landed in. He also thought about calling back to Loki walking to the doors behind him that hey, he should feel right at home here, but hesitated. The young frost giant hadn't reacted positively during any of the other times his origins had been brought up, so the Doctor doubted he would now.

"Come on, come out, it's lovely," the Doctor said instead, stepping aside to let Loki emerge from the TARDIS. The dark-haired man frowned when his dress shoes sank into the snow almost immediately.

"What?" he asked, blinking. "No, this isn't right."

"Well, snow in the mountains does seem normal to _me_ ," the Doctor replied casually. And they were in the mountains. In fact, the Time Lord would have been hard-pressed to remember a place _more_ mountain-y.

The TARDIS had parked herself like a static impossibility on a steep snowy flank, her doors facing the peak. The Doctor had had to step carefully out of it to not tumble right back in. There was white, brilliant snow _everywhere_ , glistening underneath a beautiful, sunny sky, the surrounding peaks of the Himalaya-like range they had landed in looking sharp enough to cut your eye if you looked at them too long. Somewhere far below, at the foot of the mountain, the Doctor thought he might have been able to detect rolling hills and valleys, but it was hard to tell because they, too, were covered entirely in white.

The Time Lord turned to Loki, who had taken some more steps outside the TARDIS, staring.

"Brilliant view, innit?" he suggested. "Also, since I forgot to say this earlier, I suppose I should tell you about one of the rules when travelling with me – don't wander off."

"What?" Loki repeated again, head whipping back toward him, confused and irritated. "Where is this? Where have you taken me?"

The Doctor pursed his lips. "Would you believe me the roots of Yggdrasil are a skiing resort this time of year?"

" _This isn't the roots of Yggdrasil_!" Loki snapped, stalking a few feet away and looking around with narrowed eyes. To his credit, he only paused when he beheld the TARDIS from the outside for a moment, but then his general anger seemed to win out again over surprise. His gaze narrowed back in on the Doctor. "This isn't anywhere even close to it. You _lied_ to me."

"You're the God of Mischief," the Doctor pointed out. "Doesn't lying to you count as some sort of worship?"

In fact, he wasn't even sure why he was starting to feel peevish now. Landing here had been an honest mistake, but there was something about Loki, the way he was so _prickly_ all the time that it was hard not to let your hackles rise - even if, when he had accused the Doctor of lying he had almost seemed... _hurt_?

Right now the frost giant seemed ready to explode, though, so the Time Lord quickly continued, "Anyway, no, I didn't lie. Sometimes I just...don't land exactly where I intended. Look, the roots of an imaginary tree are not the easiest place to hit, okay?!" he defended himself when Loki didn't seem particularly convinced.

"I'm not sure where we are," the Doctor admitted, taking a few steps away and looking around. "I'd have to check the scanners again. This, um, isn't your home world, is it? Jotunheim?" he added with a side glance at the alien. Maybe the TARDIS had been trying to take him home...?

xxx

"No, it isn't _,"_ Loki ground out. He could feel the frustration boiling up inside him, not only because the other man was by far not grovelly enough when confronted with the anger of a god, but also because now even _ships_ seemed out to defy him today. What had he ever done to deserve this?

_Well, I could think of a few things,_ a treacherous voice in his head whispered and Loki crushed it. Instead, he waved an irritated hand at the Doctor.

"No, this isn't _Jotunheim_ , you fool. To be more precise, this backwater ditch isn't anywhere in the realms of Asgard's jurisdiction, otherwise I'd know."

"Oy! not exactly polite, calling someone a fool, is it?" The Time Lord protested, shoving his hands onto his hips. "And I should know, because I do that a lot!"

Loki stared at him for a moment, as if he had no idea how to compute that latest nonsense, but then his gaze grew simply cold. "Forget it."

"You know, you could really try to be more friendly," the Doctor replied with a frown. "Hey! Are you even listening?" he was raising his voice now because Loki had started stalking away from the TARDIS, up the steep snowy slope the blue phone box was precariously parked on. "OY!" the Doctor hollered again when it seemed the frost giant had no intention of stopping, shouting now. "I _said_ no wandering off, didn't I? Come on! What have I ever done to you?!"

Next, of course, Loki did halt.

But that was mostly because the Doctor's shouts had just caused the start of an avalanche above their heads.

"Well," the Time Lord said. "Besides _that_ , obviously."

xxx

" _Open the doors_!" Loki was the one shouting now, his eyes wide and panicky as he was all at once sprinting back towards the Doctor and his damned blue box.

The Time Lord whirled around."Right!"

From a bird's eye point of view, the two tall, lanky figures in suits now stumbling and flailing through the snow field were a sight that could have easily been compared to a couple of panicking flamingoes, if the situation hadn't been so grave. As it was, the huge, thundering mass of snow crashing toward them would probably reach them in under a minute if they couldn't get out of its way. Loki, looking back at it while he was running, wasn't even sure whether his magic would obey him now if he stopped to try and teleport himself away, or whether being a frost giant would potentially let you survive being buried under hundreds of tons of picturesque winter scenery.

The Doctor arrived at the doors first, fumbling to get key out of his pocket, briefly looking back whether Loki was coming – and oh yes, he definitely was.

The only thing the Gallifreyan could shout was "Loki, _stop_ -!" before the self-proclaimed trickster god had already barrelled into him full tilt, apparently a lot better at running than actually looking where he was going.

The Doctor collided with the TARDIS doors with a _thud!_ and an "Ooomph!" before he had a chance to attempt to open them. Loki had crashed into him hard enough to knock the breath out of them both – and _then_ the Doctor felt like both his hearts were about to skip a beat, because now that he was pressed against the blue box, which had stood at a very perilous angle on the steep ground to begin with, he could feel it...ever so slowly... _tilting_...

"Wha-NO!"

There was another W _omph! a_ s the TARDIS abruptly keeled over, letting the two man-shaped aliens fall forwards into the snow. Behind the Doctor, Loki's head popped up, the green-eyed frost giant with the snow in his hair glaring at him like a pissed-off Christmas Elf.

"By the Allmother, are you _trying_ to aggravate me-?!"

"No time for that!" The Doctor shouted, already having jumped to his feet and roughly yanking at Loki's wrist for him to get up, "Run! We need to catch my ship!"

Loki blinked, because now he could also see the TARDIS sliding away, and steadily gaining speed along the incline. Behind them, the avalanche now sounded a _lot_ closer.

...this was SO not his day.

xxx

"Hurry!" The Doctor was yelling the word, not even sure any more whether he meant it directed at Loki or himself. In front of them, the TARDIS was now almost as fast as they were running, and would soon be faster, the white icy death behind them now only seconds away.

"JUMP!" The Time Lord shouted, leaping at the same time as Loki did and they both landed on the front doors of the phone booth that were now its top side, the blue box gaining some more momentum as a result, now careening down the incline like the nerdiest bob sled ever.

"The doors, open the _doors_!" Loki was staring at the white wall of terror behind them, now almost upon them -

"I'm _trying_!" the Doctor shouted back, but the bumpy ride was making it almost impossible to insert the small key into the lock, and then the avalanche had almost reached them, and Loki yelled

"NO TIME!" and then the Asgardian threw up his hands, blasted the ground behind them with something that could have been magic but let the snow explode akin a jet engine flare, and as a result the TARDIS took off down the slope like a rocket ship.

xxx

Somewhere a long, long while away, Thor, the god of thunder, looked at the Allfather Odin. Both of them were standing in the observatory with Heimdall, the Watcher of the universe.

"Erm. Any...any idea of what he is seeing, father?" the younger of the gods sounded somewhat clueless, and varying between confused and worried.

"No." Odin shook his head as he regarded the golden-armoured god with a frown. "But he has been laughing like a man without sense for the last half an hour."

xxx

Back in a yet unnamed world, far away from Asgard, two men (well, man-shaped beings) were currently screaming, and sledding down a mountain on a phone box at near sonic speed, while behind them an avalanche was catching up.

It said something for both Loki and the Doctor that this might not even have made it into either of their Top Five Dangerous or Top Five Crazy situations.

But then again, you wouldn't have been able to tell that from their combined screaming.

" _AAAAAAAAAH!_ "

"THIS IS _ALL_ YOUR FAULT!"

"HOW IS _ANY_ OF THIS _MY_ FAULT?!"

Loki, lying flat on top of the phone box and clinging on for dear life, managed to turn his head fractionally to stare at the Doctor hanging on next to him.

"Your ship landed on this planet! Your shouting caused the avalanche! You're a bigger imbecile than my brother!"

"Because _you_ were running off! I was only trying to help! _You_ ran into _me_ and keeled over the TARDIS!"

"If you had _said_ something to warn me-!"

"Oh, really, like what, WATCH OUT!"

"Yes, something like that would have been acceptable," Loki conceded irritably, "I mean if-"

"No, no, no!" The Doctor grabbed his shoulder and pointed toward the front, "I mean we need to WATCH-!"

And then, by the laws of perfect timing, the TARDIS of course soared over a mountain cliff.

For a moment in flight, the Doctor looked at Loki.

"You're not very good at following orders, are you?"

xxx

Odin looked at Thor.

"What is this he is eating?"

"It is a...Midgard thing," the younger god responded numbly. "They call it popcorn."

xxx

Loki was...flying. Beneath them, the abyss was stretching out, the avalanche behind them now pouring into it. They were soaring across the chasm, the mountain behind them towering like a monolith, their flight path taking them clear over the fissure in its side and the sharp-edged stalactites at its bottom, their course headed straight for a plateau below...

The TARDIS narrowly landed on the other side of the chasm with a spectacularly powdery crash and a painful bounce, its two passengers being thrown off the box by the force of the impact. They landed in the snow with similar muffled exclamations, both rolling to a rather undignified stop. Then there was a moment of stunned silence with both Time Lord and frost giant raising their heads out of the snow and simply looking at each other, wide green eyes meeting equally baffled brown ones and then, maybe just because it was the aftermath of the adrenaline, or maybe it was because the Doctor's lips had twitched first...but suddenly Loki found he couldn't help but _laugh_.

This was all completely ridiculous, and in a way so familiar it hurt - like it had been centuries ago, him and...he...getting into trouble, days filled with madcap deeds and daring escapes, adventures on worlds he had smuggled them onto, past the Allfather's orders, just because they could -

Their laughter abruptly froze as beneath Loki and the TARDIS, the ground broke away into the fissure, both him and the phone box abruptly starting to tumble into oblivion.

And Loki for a moment could not have felt greater surprise as the Doctor didn't hesitate for a second before lunging after him instead of his ship.

The hand of the Gallifreyan closed securely around his wrist just as the ice beneath the frost giant tumbled into the abyss.

"Loki!" the Doctor called, brown eyes wide. "Hold on!"

"What do you _think_ I'm doing?!" the Asgardian snapped back before he could stop himself. Looking down, all he could see were sharp, icy spikes far, far below in an icy chasm. Somehow letting yourself fall dramatically into an interminable void had seemed a far more romantic option back then than getting impaled on very concrete ice pillars and rock shards not a hundred metres below now.

_He saved you without thinking twice about it_.

"Can you find purchase anywhere?" the Doctor called down. "I...don't think I can pull you up, you're...too heavy...!" the Time Lord's voice was strained. "See, this is why I always have female companions-"

Loki looked around himself. The wall he was hanging in front of was basically sheer ice, not offering foot- or handholds anywhere...and his magic, though obviously healthy, seemed now to have gone to sleep again, overtaxed by his earlier, panicky exertion. Which really only left him with one thing as an option...

Loki sighed. He brought his free hand up. He didn't even need to touch the ice before the wall was pierced by blue Jotun claws, his hand in its natural shape finding secure purchase on a surface that would have frozen human fingers and numbed even those of an Aesir.

"Right! Right, got you..." the Doctor managed between gritted teeth as with combined efforts they managed to hoist the Asgardian upwards again, Loki taking care to change his hand back as soon as he didn't need the hold any more.

"Okay, I'd like to preface this by saying I'm very sorry, but I'm really, really glad you decided not to fall," the Doctor managed, just as he pulled Loki over the edge. But the Asgardian had already paused as soon as he had solid ground underneath his hands and knees, and was now staring up.

That is, staring at the group of armed soldiers in thick winter coats that were now running toward them, weapons in their hands.

The Doctor looked at the frost giant with a guilty grimace.

"...mostly because I also _really_ hate being taken prisoner when I'm on my own. Sorry."

_To be continued..._


	4. The Winter Soldiers

Loki stared at the approaching soldiers. They seemed to be human, or close enough, and there were about a dozen of them, all clad in thick winter clothes that seemed to be a mixture of Asgardian furs and leathers and more modern fabrics that he had seen on Midgard. He couldn't see their faces, which were covered by cloth and, in some cases, tinted glasses against the snow's glare, but he saw their weapons well enough.

Guns, and spears and axes; like their clothing, their weaponry was an odd mixture between the sophisticated and the crude – but Loki also knew well enough that a pick axe hitting your head didn't need a degree in physics.

"No," he said.

"What?" the Doctor asked.

" _No_ ," Loki repeated, and he meant it with every fibre of his being. He had had _enough_. Thor had beaten him, Odin had rejected him, a _phone box_ had _hit_ him, he had landed in a pool and then in the snow and then almost in a chasm -!

Loki pulled himself to his feet, and the running soldiers immediately stopped dead at his expression. The Doctor also looked at it, and then pulled the worrying grimace of someone who really, _really_ didn't like what he saw.

"Now, look-"

" _Nobody_ takes me prisoner," Loki said, and there were icicles basically hanging off every syllable. And now he could feel the rage inside him, that which he carefully kept locked away, and which grew every time that someone slighted him or insulted him or hurt him while he would usually keep smiling. That icy knot of white-hot fury burnt with searing cold at his core, and he could feel it washing through him now, urging him to make _everyone_ opposing him pay, and it tore his magic from its recuperative slumber and when it came to him again he smiled like an owner of a runaway, deadly pet. He flicked a hand, calling it forth for battle.

"And to those who try..." he said, and now the eyes of the soldiers that weren't covered with tinted glasses grew wide as all at once there was a wind around him and the dark grey suit he wore morphed into his _proper_ battle armour, his spear appearing in his hand like lightning given form, and when he turned toward his would-be captors and spoke, he showed them his teeth in what only a fool would have called a smile.

"I am Loki of Asgard. Do not _dare_ come closer."

There was a moment of utter silence, as all of the soldiers stared at them in terror...

And then the smallest one of them frowned and asked "Who?"

and someone else said, "Woah, did you just see that, that was _amazing_!"

and a third one added, "I dunno, that helmet looks like you would bonk it in doorframes a lot."

and a fourth one cocked his head and said. "Do you need help? You got out of that fissure alright, but you look like you're both pretty cold..."

...and Loki, not for the first time that day, couldn't help but wonder when exactly the situation had gotten just a _little_ bit away from him.

xxx

The Doctor could see how the soldiers and Loki were now staring at each other a bit like a feral hawk confronted with a batch of canaries all called Tweety – as in, both sides were obviously trying, but failing to understand the concept of each other. The Doctor cleared his throat and stepped forward.

"Uh. Hello," he said, and gave them a warm smile that he always fancied disarming (despite people very often shooting at him despite that, so, maybe not _that_ disarming). "I'm the Doctor, and who are you?"

Turning to Loki he added under his breath, "Yeeeeeah, bit of a misassumption on my part. I don't think they're here to take us prisoner, actually. I just _usually_ don't get very friendly greetings on planets but hey, just goes to show you should never expert the worst, ey? Ey?" And with that he slapped Loki on the back and stepped past him (and while he didn't know it, only narrowly avoided getting his hand sliced off for the second time during this regeneration, mostly because Loki was still in shock).

"Yeah, thanks for coming to help us," the Doctor said, once more turning to the soldiers. "We, uh, landed on that mountain flank and then my ship tumbled down that chasm. We were...sort of sleighing on it when that happened."

The soldiers stared at them.

The Doctor pulled a bit of a face.

"...maybe not one of my better ideas, yeah."

More silence.

It was broken when one of the soldiers at the back whispered just a tad too loudly and said "Okay, do you think they hit their heads...?" and then the man in front of them sighed and said,

"You might want to come inside. I'm Fjell."

xxx

'Inside' turned out to be a sort of igloo with a bigger, underground cavern beneath it that resembled a temporary living base. The soldiers had led them (after the Doctor had talked Loki into following them, anyway, claiming they could at least find out where they were – and maybe there had also been something in the Time Lord's stance and gaze, something that said hell would freeze over before he left without finding out why soldiers were running around in a wasteland) back the way they had come running, following their trail of footprints in the otherwise pristine snow.

The igloo, a round, squat dome-shaped building made of ice blocks that looked a lot less elegant than the ice palaces on Jotunheim, had a wooden door that looked haphazardly pieced together from old planks, but at least on top there was a satellite dish. Like the clothes of the soldiers, it gave off the odd vibe of someone having mixed up the puzzle pieces of a medieval picture and a modern one, and instead of separating it into two piles again, relied on the old method of simply banging pieces together until they fit.

"Here, have a sit down. Osgord will get both of you something hot to warm you up in a minute," the man named Fjell said, gesturing to a bunch of rag-tag furniture (and, in some cases just plastic barrels with furs strapped over them) arranged in what could pass as a circle around a fire pit in the middle of the igloo. Again, the rustic atmosphere was somewhat shattered by two large, battered consoles arranged against one of the walls, showing some sort of screens reminiscent of an old-fashioned radar in air field controlling tower.

Now that he was listening to it, the Doctor thought he could also hear the distinct hum of an artron energy generator somewhere close-by, which would explain the electric lamps on sticks stuck into the wall at strategic intervals. Curiously, someone had even hung up a string of something that looked like Christmas lights. There were perhaps a total of twenty people shuffling around in the igloo/base, all human and most of them men, but also a few women (the Doctor thought so, at least. But then again, most of them looked like spheric walking piles of fabric anyway, so it was a little bit hard to tell.)

However, there also seemed to be a bit of an...empty feel about the place, something that didn't quite fit. A dark voice inside the Doctor's head asked him whether the base might not have held more people some time ago, and what could have happened to them, but he tried not to let it show on his face. Time for that later.

"Thank you. We will," he said, giving Fjell a friendly smile and an encouraging nod to Loki, who looked slightly less pleased to be here than him. The frost giant ironically seemed to be managing to look uncomfortable in an igloo now, which the Doctor supposed was quite a feat. They sat down on two sacks covered by fur and soon enough, someone who was probably Osgord and looked like a friendly, humanoid walrus pressed two mugs into their hands. Fjell sat down opposite them, accompanied by more soldiers also slumping down on seats around the fireplace like congenial clothpiles, each clutching a drink of their own.

"Right, then. Welcome to the base – or what's left of it, anyway. Where're you boys from?" he asked. Stripped off the mask covering his face, he revealed an old and grizzled visage, reminding the Doctor a bit of what he himself had looked like during the Time War.

"Oh, we've come quite a long way, actually. Loki's from Asgard, I'm from Earth. We weren't exactly planning on landing here, but..."

"But s _omeone_ can't fly their own ship," Loki interjected, and Fjell gave a snort at the Doctor's immediate air of indignancy.

"Right. Can't say I've heard of either of those places, but of course we don't get many visitors these days," Fjell said, taking a sip from his mug. "The snow storms keep most craft from landing, no wonder you crashed when you tried it – that's what happened to you, right?" he asked, frowning a little. "You came sliding down the mountain on the wreckage of your ship. Your crash landing caused the avalanche."

"Yeeeeah, _kind_ of like that," the Doctor said carefully, wondering whether it was necessary to direct another warning glare at Loki, but he needn't have worried. The frost giant seemed to be preoccupied with his drink at the moment, peering at it a bit doubtfully, before then passing a hand over it in a gesture that seemed casual but the Time Lord guessed was anything but. He raised a questioning eye brow at Loki and was rewarded with a bit of a startled look from the Asgardian when he glanced up and noticed the Doctor's gaze – Loki obviously not used to someone watching him.

The Doctor looked from the cup back to the frost giant's eyes and Loki paused for a moment, seemingly thinking – before then, just smoothly enough that it wouldn't be noticed, swept his hand over the Doctor's drink as well. The Time Lord noticed how the liquid glowed the faintest green for a moment...and coupled with the blast earlier, this left the options that Loki was either a highly functional, weaponized microwave – or a wizard.

The Doctor carefully took a sip.

"This is really nice, thanks," he offered to their hosts, to end the few seconds of silence the entirety of his and Loki's silent exchange had lasted.

Fjell nodded. "'s called Nutriliq. It's almost all we ever drink around here - almost all we _have_ to drink, really. This base is in the middle of the Northern Wilderness, not a great lot of options on supplies," the man said with a shrug, tipping his own mug back and emptying it.

"Lucky for you we _are_ here, though," a younger man sitting next to Fjell, the one who had previously been so wowed by Loki's magical clothing change, and had been eyeing the golden helmet with fascination ever since Loki had placed it next to his seat, remarked. "There ain't anything around here for miles, all of this has been snowed-in wasteland for a while now. If we hadn't found you, you could have frozen to death out there." The tone in which he said this was almost eerily casual, and the Doctor again got the worrying impression that out here, maybe this really had been only all too common.

And then he could hear it, a voice inside him that had the exact same steel in it that Loki's voice had had earlier, and it said _NO,_ it said _This isn't right -_

Next to him, Loki leaned forward, the frost giant's expression predictably unimpressed by the possibility of death by hypothermia, but nevertheless curious. "If this is nothing but frozen wasteland, then what are soldiers doing out here?" he asked, and the Doctor was pulled a little from his dark thoughts and had to refrain from giving him an appreciative smile. Clever alright...

But Fjell just looked at them, seemingly a bit surprised at the question.

"Why, we are trying to find out why it is winter."

Loki raised an eye brow, and then began in a flat tone of voice. "Really. And it hasn't _occurred_ to you, by any chance-"

"- _that we might be able to help you_?" the Doctor cut in quickly to finish the question glibly (and doubtlessly differently than Loki had intended). By now for the Time Lord it was slowly becoming clear that at least one of the reasons why Loki was always so on guard was because he managed to tick people off in record time. The Doctor shot the frost giant a 'Would you kindly try not to get us facing the firing squad before lunchtime'-stare and was rewarded with an eye roll that, in Teenage Human at least, could be effortlessly translated as 'Urgh, fine.'

Turning to their hosts, the Doctor continued, "Why _are_ you trying to find out why it is winter?" He asked. "Any problems with the season? Snowmen attacking you? No, wait, that would be ridiculous..."

Fjell blinked again, but then shook his head, apparently resigned to the permanent oddities of his visitors.

"...right. Right. If you're from farther away, I suppose it makes sense you wouldn't know. The problem is actually not that it's winter but that it's _still_ winter. Our planet hasn't seen spring for three years."

"Really," the Doctor leaned forward with bright eyes, now definitely intrigued. Beside him, Loki looked like someone who was trying to still seem aloof when he was also clearly interested and as a result looked slightly schizophrenic. The Doctor ignored him for the time being and focused on Fjell.

"Yes," the base leader confirmed, looking grave. "Of course, on Lakvit there have been ice ages in the past, but there hasn't been any meterological or astronomical event that should have caused one this time. It seems like our planet is simply dying and we have no idea why."

"Lots of people have already left," a dark-haired woman on the other side of Fjell said, looking slightly sad. "After it had been winter for a year, the first evacuation ships were chartered. But we who didn't want to leave our home are still here. Only by now it's getting hard to grow enough food for everyone, even with the underground hydrocultures, so..." she bit her lip and stared at the floor. The Doctor's expression had changed as the Lakvitian spoke, going from curiosity at a mystery to the harder lines he could feel settling on his face whenever he was confronted with an entire planet who was suffering.

"You still haven't said why you are out here precisely."

It was Loki who had spoken up again, the frost giant apparently having given up on feigning disinterest and now almost reluctantly giving in to his obvious curiosity. Well, that was at least one character trait that whatever had happened to him hadn't been able to extinguish...

Fjell blinked. "Right. Yeah. Well, there's several reasons for us to assume that there might be something going on here that could be the cause of all this. It took us a while to trace it, but...we noticed something was off with the weather patterns in this area. There's more snow coming down here than there could possibly be moisture in the troposphere, for instance. The temperatures are colder than a cloud cover should permit. Strange wind patterns. Those kinds of things."

"And you're here investigating it now," the Doctor finished the explanation, gesturing around at the computer equipment surrounding them that now made a lot more sense in an igloo. "That means you aren't soldiers - you're _scientists,_ " he said, sounding like he had just found out it was Christmas ( - the celebration, that is, not the weird truth field village in the middle of nowhere. He didn't know that one yet). Next to him, Loki muttered something like 'Is that supposed to be an achievement now? The last scientist I met didn't succeed in anything but running my brother over twice,' but the Doctor ignored him. "Found anything interesting yet?"

Fjell hesitated. "...that's classified. Sorry."

"Translation: You haven't found anything." Loki, who was apparently hoping to get burned at the stake today, was sipping his Nutriliq so delicately, the Doctor wouldn't have been surprised if he had had his pinky extended.

A few of the younger soldiers were now shooting him distinctly pissed-off glares that the frost giant barely seemed to notice. Fjell, however, only looked more defeated.

"No, you're right, we haven't," he said. "But first of all, it's a very wide area, and it doesn't help that half the time our instruments don't even seem to work properly and we have no idea why that is."

"Hm," the Doctor pursed his lips. "Mind if I take a look at them?"

"Erm..." now Fjell finally shook his head. "I'm afraid I won't be able to allow that," he said. "As long as we don't know what could have caused the ice age, we can't rule out alien intervention, which means that both of you will have to remain under supervision while you're on base, and can't be allowed to access the computer systems. Sorry."

"Look, it's not like you're prisoners!" his younger colleague added immediately, when Loki was already curiously somehow giving the impression of bristling hedgehog without actually having moved a muscle, "But you're still civilians on a military base. You can't stay here. We were planning to send you back to the capital with the next supply trek that leaves. You can try getting a space ship off the planet from there. Though I hear it's getting harder and harder to leave with the snowstorms..."

"Um, yeah. I think I'd prefer to salvage my own ship, but thanks anyway," the Doctor said. Fjell raised an eyebrow.

"Yer planning to get the wreckage of your ship out of that chasm? I don't mean to rain on your parade, boy, but that thing isn't coming out until the snow's melted and the Old Gods only know when _that's_ going to happen."

"Do they, now?" the Doctor asked, with a quirk to his lips. "In that case, care for a guess, Loki?"

"Oh, hilarious," the Asgardian muttered and then stood up and turned to their host. "That drink is excellent, Master Fjell. Do you think I could have another one?"

"By all means, the big pot is on the stove. Help yourself," Fjell gestured over to the metal container standing atop a gas burner that people occasionally wandered to and dipped their mugs in. "If you're going, could you possibly get me a refill, too? And just call me Fjell."

"Of course," Loki said, "Would anyone else like another cup?" he asked the other soldiers with a polite smile, before taking the proffered mugs and walking over to the makeshift kitchen corner, giving off an aura of servile helpfulness every step of the way.

Needless to say, the Doctor suddenly had this irrevocable feeling of utter dread, but, in his defence, at that stage in Loki's plan this was already way too late anyhow.

_To be continued..._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> * * *
> 
> Yay, here we go! Less madcap TARDIS bobsledding this chappie, but (gasp) the first traces of PLOT are emerging! Can it be? Anyway, hope you liked, despite the exposition dump, and if you read, please review! :) __  
> 


	5. The Planet That Doesn't Make Sense

" _You let the entire base fall asleep!_ "

"If you knew about it, you could have stopped me," Loki replied with an infuriating serenity, sitting at the firepit and sipping the last remnants of his own nutriliq with a shrug.

Around them, the other inhabitants of the station were now mostly sleeping soundly, lying around like gently snoring cloth piles where they had sat down after taking even only a few sips from the mugs Loki had so cheerfully handed out.

"Oh, and how should I have done that?" The Doctor asked, peevishly. "If I had tried to prevent you from meddling with that pot, it would have looked suspicious."

"I don't _meddle_ ," Loki sniffed. "Meddling is for amateurs. I _scheme_."

"Trapped in an igloo, argueing semantics with a man who wears what looks like a musical instrument on his head," the Doctor muttered, running a hand over his face. "I swear, this _never_ happened with any of the other companions..."

"Oh, as if you've never had the urge to wear a fancy hat," Loki snapped. "And besides," he added more calmly with a frown, "you wanted to have a look at their instruments. Now you can."

xxx

The Doctor was giving him an odd look now, his expression seeming like he was trying to work out what to make of Loki. The Asgardian kept his face carefully composed under the scrutiny, even if he himself wasn't sure what to feel right now. The other, this Doctor, seemed to be the strangest mixture of brilliant and...well, _ditzy_ , piloting a space craft that could travel even further than the most ambitious reaches of Asgard and recognizing him as a Jotunn despite his near-perfect efforts, _while_ _at the same time causing an avalanche that nearly killed us both,_ Loki finished the thought in his head. He had certainly never met anybody like him on Asgard.

_Certainly never anybody who didn't care what your true heritage was. And still thought engaging you in banter like a friend would be fine idea..._

Loki shut that train of thought down before it could even leave Tacit Bonding station. No. He needed the other because he seemed to know a great deal more about the universe outside the realms of Yggdrasil than Loki did. Simple as that.

"And you're _sure_ they'll be alright?"

"Yes, yes," the Frost Giant waved him off. "It was a simple sleeping draught. They will wake up in a couple of hours with a part of their memory missing, it'll be fine."

The Doctor frowned, still not looking particularly pleased with drugging their hosts, but apparently realizing that squabbling further about it would be a fruitless endeavour. He cocked his head. "So, when you passed a hand over our drinks earlier..."

Loki's face twitched briefly. Well. Ditzy or not, the other certainly had an uncanny ability never to miss nor forget anything. He waved a hand.

"A simple working in case there was poison in it."

The Doctor raised an eye brow. "...you're not exactly the trusting type, are you?"

He glanced down at his own mug somewhat doubtfully. "Also, you now apparently let a miniature rubber duck materialize in mine."

"An afterthought," Loki shrugged.

"It _quacks_."

"An amusing afterthought."

"Right..." the Doctor glanced down again at the little fowl, which seemed to be quite happily paddling around the perimeter of the mug. _A potentially insanely powerful god_ , he reminded himself, _who chose to put a rubber ducky in my drink._ _Right, then._

He stood up. "Let's have a look at their records, shall we?"

"Yes," Loki also rose, trailing after the Doctor, intrigued. He had as of yet little experience with what Midgardians called computers, to which those here on Lakvit looked suspiciously similar. Usually, he could gather what knowledge he needed by simply prying into the minds of anybody who had the misfortune to come across an information-seeking God of Mischief, but when you needed large amounts of accurate detailed data to recognize a pattern, it was easy to see that there was no way around written records – stored either in libraries or, as it seemed on other worlds, behind screens. Curious to see how his host intended to procure them without resorting to magic, Loki leaned against an ice wall, watching as the Doctor approached the console.

"Hm. Less advanced tech than they should have. Interesting," he commented, before then putting on a pair of glasses and extracting a small, pencil-like thing from his pocket, which Loki recognized as the same gadget that had been pointed at his person earlier. As it glowed and emanated its strange, whiny noise, the computer in front of them started to whirr and light up in response. Lines of text and diagrams started to whirl across its screen too fast for Loki to make sense of, but, he realized with a twinge of annoyance, apparently not too quick for the Doctor to absorb, who was staring at the screen with a look of intense concentration.

"Hmm..."

"You keep using this device. What is it? A wand?" Loki asked, his curiosity seemingly overpowering his pride more and more often ever since he had started talking to the other.

"What, this?" the Doctor asked, holding the gadget in question aloft. "No, it's not a...wand," he said, while glancing at Loki as if he had just confirmed some theory the other had had about something. "It's my sonic screwdriver. Very handy in lots of situations."

"Is that so," Loki said. "Could you make anything of their records, then?"

"Not much," the Doctor said with a grimace. "Pretty much just what they said. Cumulus clouds are acting like they were the nimbostratus type, nimbostaratus clouds are acting like they belonged to the cumulonimbus variant, and cumulonimbus clouds are...well, acting like they've ingested illegal substances, really. The weather patterns don't make sense, the temperature is far colder than it should be, and the snowfall is simply ridiculous. I think I could get a clearer picture of what is happening on this strange little planet if I could check the TARDIS' scanners, but..."

"For that we need to get your ship out of the fissure," Loki finished the thought. It suited him. He didn't particularly want to stay on what amounted to a planetary snow globe, and for that he needed the other's space craft.

"Exactly," the Doctor replied with a tilt to his mouth. He looked up to a small slit in the ice walls high overhead, which had been taped over with see-through foil of some kind, creating a make-shift window. By now it showed only darkness outside. "Though that might have to wait until tomorrow. Don't fancy going out during the night and not being able to see a thing. Can frost giants see in the dark?"

Once again, the question had been asked so casually, the Doctor obviously not even thinking before he said it, as if that was _a normal thing to ask_ , that Loki felt like he had just experienced whiplash. He tried not to show it, scrambling for an answer.

"...better than humans, though I also see better by day." _Unless I change into an owl or a snow fox,_ a voice in his head added, but Loki knew that at the moment, this was really not a viable option. The truth was, he was _exhausted._ Not five hours ago, Thor had all but wiped the Bifrost with him and before that, he had hardly found the time to sleep, either. Apparently, attempting to commit genocide of your own species really took it out of you. His worn-out magic hadn't thanked him for summoning it in a panic on the snowy slope, _or_ forcing it in anger when faced with a potential enemy. By now, it was all Loki could do to keep from swaying on his feet.

"Hm," the Doctor said, rubbing his chin. "Right, then. Let's stay the night here and then look for her in the morning. How long are these people going to sleep for?"

"For another ten hours at least," Loki replied, torn between not wanting to stay in this world for a minute longer than necessary and also _really_ feeling like collapsing anywhere at all. The Doctor was still fiddling with the console, eyes narrowed now.

"Okay," he said, pocketing his screwdriver again and straightening up. "Let's sort out some bedding then, I could also do with a kip. But we _really_ shouldn't stay here too long."

"Is something the matter?" Loki asked, wary. Before, the other had seemed like he didn't mind at all that they had crashlanded in Winter-Wonder-Land, but now, he looked...different. _Worried_.

"Well. It's...strange," the Doctor replied, casting another glance at the cam-coloured console. "Something's wrong with this planet, and it's not just their climate. Their technology is all...out of synch."

Loki frowned. "That doesn't make sense. Out of synchronization with _what_?"

The Doctor cast him a glance. "With themselves, mostly. I can...see how things should be. How they should develop. And something's interfered with this civilization. They have satellite systems too far advanced for their still completely rudimentary computer network grid. Their energy generators use technology not available on Earth until the 31st century, but their igloo – their _igloo! -_ is outfitted with lightbulbs you could buy at any Walmart!"

Loki blinked. "Where?"

"Okay, you have been to Earth, right?" the Doctor asked with a tilt of his head.

"I didn't exactly spend my time _shopping_ ," Loki replied with a touch of coolness.

"...right," the other nodded, but then went on. "Anyway, like I said. You've seen them. Some of them have guns, while others have _axes._ I saw one with a _sword_ on his back. And they don't even seem to notice that it doesn't make sense!"

Loki pursed his lips. "Asgard uses both guns and swords. It is nothing special."

"Yeah, but your little space island is populated by Viking gods. Bound to be mad," the Doctor waved a hand, seemingly ignoring Loki who wasn't sure whether he should feel insulted or not, "But this is a world populated by _humans_. And whatever else they may do, they embrace new ideas like you wouldn't _believe_ , forever falling in love with new thoughts, inventions and changes and promptly discarding the old," the Doctor spoke with a curious touch of fondness in his voice now, and Loki not for the first time wondered what it was that made this mortal race so special, why not only this Doctor but also his brother had taken to them so quickly. _What it was that he hadn't seen in me._

The Doctor shook his head as he saw Loki's thoughtful expression, "No, this is nothing that humans would do. When they have satellite internet, they stop using dial-up. When they invent guns, they put down the swords. Well." He tilted his head. "Except for at Rennaissance fairs, for some reason...anyway. Point stands. There's something very wrong here...and that's not even the worst of it." He paused dramatically for a moment and, when nothing happened, started to look at Loki expectantly.

The frost giant returned his gaze with a flat stare. "...you really only have people around so someone is asking the questions, don't you?"

The Doctor pulled a face. "Come on, work with me here!"

"...this is revenge for the sleeping draught, isn't it? Fine. Why, Doctor, what do you mean this isn't the worst of it?" Loki asked, also favouring his travelling companion with wide innocent eyes, and at least had the satisfaction of the Doctor briefly looking slightly alarmed.

"Er. What I meant to say," he recovered himself, and then, expression once again becoming utterly serious and his tone sounding grim, "That there's also something else going on here. According to their records, they've lost soldiers every single expedition. All of them just vanished. And one of them said in their statements," the Doctor glanced again at the screen, "That there's _something hiding in the snow storms_..."

xxx

It was a little bit later that the Doctor and Loki were settling in to sleep, after (at the Doctor's insistence) also having the rest of the soldiers arranged on their beds and under blankets, so none of them would suffer any ill effects from the cold. They had checked that the base was as well secured as it could be, both eaten a little of the from the store of ration bars inside the kitchen, and finally switched off most of the lights, both for energy conservation and maybe making the base a little less attractive for any vaguely-hinted-at monsters that could potentially be lurking in the arctic wildernis.

They had both chosen cots in what were presumably the officers' quarters, which seemed a little bit more comfortable than the standard ones – and Loki had to acknowledge that what the Doctor had found in the records must have been right, because after they had shifted the rest of the soldiers into their sleeping quarters, there were over half of the beds empty still. It was a sort of foreboding atmosphere with the empty cots around them in the dark, the ice walls letting the place feel less like a base and more like a tomb with each unaturally silent minute that passed.

xxx

The Doctor had chosen the first bed that looked like it wouldn't contain ice bugs or something, and let himself fall down on it, also fairly wiped. He hadn't slept since the whole disaster with the Year That Wasn't, _because you were afraid of what you would dream about, weren't you,_ and he distinctly didn't feel like taking on a planet with a severe case of global cold _and_ schizo tech without at least having a lie-down beforehand. The Doctor exhaled slowly into the dark, cold air, watching the white cloud of his breath dissipate and tried not to listen to the memories in his head.

Instead, he shifted his gaze just a little bit to the right and looked at the quiet form of Loki, lying in the cot directly adjacent to his.

That had been a surprise alright.

Truthfully, the Doctor had expected his Asgardian companion to choose a cot further removed, or perhaps in a different quarter room alltogether - but Loki _hadn't._ Instead he had just wordlessly appeared in the room where the Doctor had alreay lain down, and then stalked silently over to the bed next to his, sliding into the odd mixture of furs and synthetic sleeping bag without even so much as a direct acknowledgement of the Time Lord's presence.

For a moment, the Doctor had wondered whether Loki had even looked a bit embarrassed.

He was still hard to read, that much was true. Prickly one moment, mischievious the next, haughty, then curious, then once again so cold and indifferent he could have been carved out of the same ice as the walls...once again, the Doctor could feel himself intrigued by the self-proclaimed god. Loki looked younger now that his features were relaxed in sleep, younger and so utterly tired as if a lot more than a simple crash landing had happened to him before he had fallen into the Doctor's swimming pool.

"What is it, Doctor? Having trouble falling asleep?"

Loki's calm expression hadn't changed, but now there was one sliver of surprisingly brilliant green eye quirked open and regarding him lazily. The Doctor snorted. He probably should have known.

"Yes," he replied truthfully. "You?"

"...perhaps," Loki replied after a pause. "I admit there are certain things I have been pondering."

"Oh?"

"When you introduced us and our realms of origin to our hosts," Loki said, carefully. "You lied."

The Doctor frowned. "No, I didn't. I know you are a Frost Giant, but you _are_ from Asgard, not Jotunheim."

And at this, Loki finally turned his head to face him fully and let see a thin smile. "I didn't say you were lying about _me."_

The Doctor threw him a look. "Clever."

"I tend to be," the other replied with just a hint of amusement, before his gaze became once again curious. "So, Doctor. Where are you really from?"

There was a bit of a pause in the conversation. Loki looked at him, silently, and once again the Doctor felt just like back then, when the other had asked him to take him to the roots of Yggdrasil, wondering whether he would be trusted and at the same time looking almost like he was already expecting not to be ...

"Gallifrey," the Doctor said.

And, almost too subtle to see in the dark, the Asgardian's eyes seemed to light up the tiniest bit.

"Gallifrey," Loki repeated the name, speaking the word like a spell. "Can't say I've ever heard of a world with that name."

"You wouldn't have," the Doctor said, quietly. "It burnt."

There was once again silence, but it felt...slightly different than before. No tension in it, just a bit of silent acknowledgement. Loki looked like he was puzzling out how to respond, something that seemed to be a fairly novel experience for him, judging by the slight frown on his features. He cast his eyes up at the ceiling again, steepling his fingers over his chest, and when he spoke, kept his tone carefully neutral.

"You...didn't mention that I'm not human, either."

_A topic change._ The Doctor quirked an eye brow, wondering for a moment whether that was perhaps Loki's way of showing that he had understood the Doctor didn't fancy talking much about his past and respected it without saying as much. _Which would have been quite the concession_ , a voice in the Doctor's head added, _considering that before he showed as much tact as a sociophobic cactus._

"No," the Time Lord answered easily, and then tried a sort of lop-sided grin. "But _they_ are. And you know humans – they don't really deal well with someone being different."

"Not just humans," Loki muttered quietly, but then he had already added a much louder 'Goodnight, Doctor', and turned around so abruptly, that the Time Lord wondered for a moment whether he had even imagined it – and, if not, whether Loki had meant those words to be heard.

_To be continued..._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Errr, yeah. Gaps wide enough in between new installments to rival Sherlock-levels, but hey. Have an update of a winter's tale to cool you during the hot summer? ;) If you read, please review! :D


	6. A Winter's Tale

The Doctor woke up when it was still dark in the base. Despite the thick blanket and the fact that his core temperature was lower than a human's to start with, he felt stiff and cold. The way Loki's bed was already empty and he could hear the Asgardian banging about in the kitchen, presumably either trying to make breakfast or attempting to bring the igloo down on their heads, suggested that the frost giant was a lot more at home in this climate than he. The Doctor rose with a groan, and rubbed his arms in their suit sleeves, wondering not for the first time whether this was perhaps how that Noble woman had felt running around London during Christmas time in her wedding dress (and constantly complaining about it). Walking past the other cots, occupied by everyone else still sleeping the drought off, he ambled into the kitchen.

"Morning. What's that you're doing?"

Loki didn't even turn his head as he was rifling through the drawers. "Looking for food to take with us. And if possible, weapons."

"Stealing, huh?" the Doctor said, but then yawned again, finding he really couldn't be bothered with moralities this early in the morning. "Try to steal some coffee while you're at it."

"There is still some Nutriliq left."

"Ugh. What's wrong with tea, I ask you. Uncultured planet."

More awake now, the Doctor stalked into the kitchen, poking about a bit himself. His gaze fell onto an impressive pile of things Loki had apparently already declared ownership of, all of them arranged into a precarious miniature mountain on the kitchen counter.

"Right," the Time Lord said. "And how are you planning to carry that?"

"Please." So saying, Loki finally shot him a look, made a complicated-looking gesture with his hands and at the same time opened a sort of glowing... _fold_  in spacetime, the Doctor supposed, into which he casually tossed the items on the table one after the other, and then let the whole thing disappear.

"Portable wormhole into my own private holding dimension," the frost giant stated matter-of-factly, and was seemingly already preparing to dig through the next cupboard, but apparently hadn't expected the other man to light up like a brown-suited Christmas tree.

"Pockets!  _Finally_  a man who appreciates them. Bet  _you_  wouldn't have any problems carrying stuff in a wedding dress. Er. I  _think_  that sounded better in my head," the Doctor mumbled with a frown, "But anyway. Yes. Brilliant handling there, own pocket dimension and all, I mean. Very impressive."

Loki stared. Part of it the Doctor supposed could be attributed to the slightly erratic crossdressing comment –  _although, this being *Loki*_ , a voice in his head added,  _that comment was probably spot-on,_ but the other part...again, the Time Lord had the odd sensation that the frost giant simply had no idea how to handle a  _compliment_.

xxx

"...yes. I know," Loki finally said, clearing his throat and letting the pocket dimensional wormhole vanish again. "Are you ready to depart in search for your ship?"

The Doctor pursed his lips. "Me? Sure. You...seem energetic today."

"My m- energy has returned more quickly than I suspected."

"Has it," the Doctor replied, frowning now and Loki had the feeling that there was more going on behind those brown eyes than the other was saying, but then the Doctor had already turned around and was striding to the door.

"Very well, then.  _Allôns-y_!"

Loki raised an eye ridge as the other had opened the door and was now apparently taking a deep breath as if it was a spring day outside and they couldn't wait for a stroll in the park.

"Do you even know where to go?" Loki asked flatly, a question born from long-suffering years of following after a certain oaf of a not-brother, who only always  _looked_  like he knew where he was going, but would very probably lead you and all the members of your party only straight into the next celestial equivalent of a tavern brawl.

At the question, the Doctor shot him a look over his shoulder. "Of course I do. She's my ship. I can hear her," he explained, right before striding out into the snow.

_Well_ , Loki thought,  _now I'm pretty certain I'm not the only non-human here._

After a while, he took a breath.

"I...am a shapeshifter."

"What?"

The Doctor stopped for a moment, waiting for Loki to come up at his side. The two men – well, man-shaped beings – had been trudging through the snow for a good quarter of an hour or so, a brilliant sun shining down on them and the ground covered by a pristine layer of freshly fallen snow. Their footprints of last night had long vanished in the wind and under the new flakes the night had brought, but the Doctor apparently hadn't been lying when he had said he would be able to find his ship.

"That is why I do not appear a frost giant," Loki ventured, carefully not looking at the Doctor. It was strange. The man had realized from the very beginning what he was, had seen through his magical disguise in an instant...and hadn't been bothered in the least by it. Loki had felt naked, to be exposed like this, have his inner nature laid bare, but at the same time it was...almost relieving. He couldn't even imagine talking so calmly about this part of his heritage with anyone else, but so far, nothing seemed to have upset the other.

Still, now that he had placed his bargaining chip on the table, time to go in for the kill.

"And what about you?"

"Me?" The Doctor cast him a quizzival glance.

"I am a shape-shifting frost giant monster from Asgard," Loki repeated calmly, "and what are you?"

xxx

The Doctor paused at the question. He wasn't sure he was comfortable with the derogatory way Loki kept referring to himself...or how he had just used the word 'what' instead of 'who'. He glanced back at the Asgardian, trying to let his answer come as natural as he usually introduced himself to a companion.

"I'm a Time Lord," the Doctor said. "From Gallifrey, as you know."

There was no flash of recognition in the other's eyes at either of the words, but the frost giant still raised a finely sculpted eye brow.

"A Time...Lord. Didn't you say you weren't a ruler?"

"It's just a name," the Doctor replied, not looking at Loki now because he didn't want to see how clearly the frost giant could tell that it was only half a lie.

"If you call yourself a Time Lord, why do you look Midgardian?"

At this, the Doctor couldn't help but give a small twitch of the lips, an amused snort fogging up the air in front of his face."If you call yourself an Asgardian, why do you look Time Lord?"

Loki regarded him for a moment, but then his own expression abruptly stretched into a sharp smile, and then the Doctor couldn't help but stare in fascination, because next it was his own face looking back at him, and his own voice that said,

"I look, Doctor, like anything I wish."

Brown eyes widened. "Blimey. Well, they do say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery." He tried to give the other a grin. "Mind you, if you plan on keeping that face, I'm wanted in several galaxies, just so you know."

Now it was Loki's turn to look slightly taken aback, before he then abruptly shifted back into his Aesir appearance. There was a curious, thoughtful expression on face now that let the Doctor feel like he had gained points somewhere - but then again, playing any points game with Loki at all was a bit like getting a Royal Flush as a hand, only to find out that you had actually been playing Snakes And Ladders the entire time. Striding forwards again, the Doctor found he couldn't help but grin. This was getting interesting!

xxx

They did find the TARDIS after a while, but it did not actually improve the situation.

"Well," Loki said, "Though I despise stating the obvious, that  _is_  a large ice cube."

"Yes," the Doctor admitted with a frown. Both of them were currently standing in front of a, well,  _large ice cube_ , which also held the by now familiar form of the blue wooden box inside. The ice cube was topped with snow, looked like it had been hewn out of a glacier, sparkled like a Christmas tree, and was also more than four feet thick on each side. The TARDIS seemed to float serenely inside it like a writing desk toy produced after a misheard proposal regarding construction size.

"This...shouldn't have happened." The Doctor frowned. "I topped up the anti-freezing liquid only last week."

When Loki mostly threw him a are-you-serious look, the Doctor rapidly waved a hand. "And anyway, the more important thing is that it shouldn't have frozen like this at all. I mean, it crashed down from  _there_ -" he pointed up at the top of the cliff where they had yesterday crash-landed on and today had walked down to the foot of - "and then fell down  _here_  and...how did it get frozen in ice like this? There isn't even any  _water_  here." The Doctor looked decidedly put out. "It's like someone's  _trying_  to sabotage me."

"Well, how do you suppose we get it out? More anti-freezing liquid?" Loki suggested dryly.

"Well, obviously we have to melt her out of that block." The Doctor shrugged. "But since we didn't bring a flame thrower, we-"

" _Actually_ ," the frost giant then cut in with a lazy drawl as he raised his hands, "Did I mention I'm also the god of fire?"

It was the second time the Doctor looked surprised this day, but then again, someone whose hands had just burst into flame might do that you.

Xxx

"You're a  _magician_!"

The statement was as inane as it was obvious – but still, Loki didn't think he'd ever heard it said with such a pleased  _smile_  behind it. He tried not to pay too much attention to how that made him feel.

"It is one of my talents," he said instead, trying to sound as lofty as possible – right before flinging his arms forward and blasting the block of ice with a jet stream of flame rivalling that of his Destroyer.

It was a bit unspectacular when nothing at all happened.

"Um..." the Doctor began, and Loki snapped,

" _What_?"

"It...doesn't appear to be melting." The Time Lord cocked his head toward the ice block that stood around as square-shaped as ever.

"It wouldn't," Loki replied with thin lips. "This ice isn't natural, but conjured in nature. That explains how it formed in this way around your ship."

The Doctor raised his eye brows. "You're saying this is...Magic Ice?"

(Loki at this point had no idea whether the Time Lord was actually a sorcerer himself, but the way the man took his words and made them sound utterly ridiculous, had to be some kind of supernatiral ability, he was sure.)

"Yes,  _magic ice_ , as you put it," he replied irritably, "Which  _also_  means that this winter isn't natural. Someone is manipulating the seasons on this planet."

"Ah-ha! That explains the cloud patterns." The Doctor grinned. "Climate change on a global scale, then? Impressive."

"Child's play if you know what is required." Loki waved a hand dismissively, already digging through his memory if he could remember whether he had ever seen anything like this before-

"Is it?" The Doctor then actually interrupted him. "How does it work?"

Loki glanced up. "You're interested?"

The Doctor gave him a small grin in return. "Oh, I'm interested in  _everything_. So, in your opinion, how does one go about freezing a planet, then?"

Loki paused for a second. Then:

"...have you got a pen and paper?"

Again, it was a little while later (after a lengthy explanation and several diagrams both on spare paper and in the snow, depicting various thaumaturgic formulas, spell designs, (and one game of tic-tac-toe when they had briefly veered off-course)) that the Doctor was now nodding thoughtfully while looking at his frozen ship and going 'Hmm' a lot. Loki, for his part, had to actually admit that the Time Lord hadn't been a bad audience at all – he had asked questions at the right times, had mostly nodded at others, (had in one instance even  _added_ something to a formula that technically no one outside of Asgard should know) and when they were done, Loki had the impression that the other had actually understood what he had been saying, and done so pretty damn well.

"I see," the Doctor said at this point, turning back around. "That seems to be pretty clever spellwork, then. And you worked out all that just by trying to melt the ice?"

"Yes. Well." Loki tried to look as haughty as he was able to for the moment and tried not to obviously preen.

Fortunately, the next remark made that only all too easy.

"But you still can't melt it."

"...no. I told you. It's -"

"Yes, magic," the Doctor waved him off. "So...that means you can't melt the ice with magic, because it  _is_  magic?" The Doctor cocked his head. "Isn't that kind of impractical?"

" _You're welcome to try and screwdriver it away."_ Loki managed to pronounce the sentence without actually separating his teeth.

Immediately, the Doctor had raised both hands in a peace offering. "Point taken. Very well. So. Your suggestion to dealing with this problem would be...?"

"Well." Loki's expression darkened. "Find the sorcerer who is responsible and defeat them."

And the Doctor smiled. " _That's_  what I wanted to hear!  _Allôns-y_!"

xxx

"Allfather?"

"Yes, Thor?"

"Heimdall just said 'This is either a good thing, or the worst event ever to happen'. I am, frankly, a little worried."

_To be continued..._


	7. White Snow and the Huntsmen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Still stranded on a frozen planet with technology from about three different time-periods and the TARDIS locked in a giant magic ice cube, Loki and the Doctor set out to find the sorcerer who has meddled with the climate. On their way, of course, nothing goes ever as smoothly as one would hope.

p> **Chapter 7: White Snow and the Huntsmen**

 

About two hours later, Loki conceded that he _may_ have been a bit too enthusiastic about his magic having returned to its full strength. As it was, teleporting still felt impossible and the working he had cast to locate the source of the magic that had tumbled this world into its eternal winter was constantly breaking down and apart, giving them at best a vague direction to stumble into, and not much of a clue yet what kind of spell or sorcerer they were about to quarrel with.

It didn’t help Loki’s concentration that his thoughts also kept drifting back to Thor’s face, his bro – _not-brother’s_ expression as he let go and fell, blue eyes that should have been filled with fury wide with shock instead…Loki bared his teeth against the cold, sucking the frigid air into his lungs and turning his head toward his companion to distract himself from the world inside his head that was as desolate as the rolling snow plains in front of them.

“Are you not cold? Only an Aesir would have such resistance.”

“Me? Oh no, I’m fine – well, as long as we keep moving, anyway. Time Lords are a bit more cold-resistant than your average human,” the Doctor waved him off. “Still wouldn’t mind a hot chocolate at this point, though…”

“I can conjure you a cloak,” Loki said, surprised himself at the words that had just slipped out. _But,_ he reasoned, _being stuck on this planet with a corpse instead of a madman would not improve the situation._

“Oh. Oh no, thanks,” the Doctor shook his head. “I like to travel light, you know? Makes the running easier.”

“The _running_?” Loki repeated, a frown drawing his brows together as it always did at the enigmatic answers of the other. The Doctor looked at him.

“Oh, there’s a _lot_ of running, believe me.”

It was at this point that there was a howl in the distance.

Then wolves erupted over the crest of the hill behind them.

Xxx

“Right,” Odin said, looking at Heimdall with a frown. “If these laughing fits of him persist, we may need to send him to the healers.”

xxx

“ _Run!_ ”

“ _No_ , you fool! They will outpace us!” Loki grabbed the shoulder of the Doctor who (apparently out of habit), had been about to dash off but was now brought up short.

Up ahead, the wolves had started loping toward them, the pack separating to encircle and trap them. Loki could see how unkempt their coats were, how thin and ragged some of the pack looked. These were beasts that had not been able to feed properly in this eternal winter, it seemed.

_However, Loki of Asgard shall not be your next meal._

Loki ignored the small sting at this old title of his so easily coming up in his mind and instead threw up his hands, trying to force the magic that was still reluctant to come, calling forth his battle armor out of instinct. 

“They are nearly twice the size that they should be,” the Doctor murmured next to his side, looking inappropriately interested for the occasion, “the fauna on Lakvit should be similar to that of Earth, but these aren’t normal wolves - they look large enough to ride…“

“ _Fascinating_ , Doctor,” Loki gritted out, trying to identify who the leader of the pack could be. He didn’t have much magic at his disposal, but if he could only scare or control that one…

“I’ll say. Technology and weather affected on this planet is one thing, but if it changes even the animals-“

And that was about as far as the Doctor came because it was at this point that Loki hurled a stream of fire at the largest, closest wolf. The beast _howled._

“Huh.” The doctor blinked as the animal was thrown back like a ragdoll, the others of the pack also rearing backward, but only briefly. The animal had impacted into the snowbank in front of them, a charred, black thing consisting of remnants of pelt and burned flesh, but that barely deterred the others, hunger apparently having long since overtaken any caution or fear.

“Um,” the Doctor took another step backwards toward Loki, so that they were now back to back, each of them facing the slowly tightening circle of the pack around them. “So…how many more of these have you got?”

“A few,” Loki said, raising his spear again at the closest beast. His lips thinned. “Yet not enough.”

“Hmm. Thought so,” the Doctor nodded grimly.  He raised one of his hands to shield his eyes against the glare of the snow. “If it’s any consolation, I think I can see smoke rising in the distance. There might be an actual dwelling in sight that might find our remnants eventually.”

“I have no intent to die here, Doctor,” Loki growled. “I may be able to change shape into something more practical to fight in the snow,” he added, ignoring the sly, mocking voice in his head that whispered, _A form more fitting for the cold, yes? I wonder what that could be, Loki Laufeyson, _at the same time as another voice screamed _NO_ , and before Loki could decide what to do, one of the beasts _charged_.

“LOKI!”

Loki’s blast of magic felled it only at arm’s length from the Doctor’s face.

“They’re getting bolder. Our time is fading fast,” Loki muttered, only a small part of him noting that though the wolf had leapt at the Doctor, the Time Lord had not ducked out of the way for the beast to tear into Loki’s back instead, only called out a warning for him to whirl and react in time. “Do you not have _any_ defensive capabilities of your own?” he asked instead, the question _How on Asgard did you survive this long?_ barely implied.

“Well,” the Doctor hedged, “Usually, it’s around this time that I come up with a brilliant plan of some sort – ”

“Do you?” Loki shot back, the tensing of the muscles in the nearest wolf sharpening his tone into an edge, “Well, in this case I should _love_ to hear about i-”

“Hear! That’s _it_!” The Doctor shouted, at once reaching into his jacket and whipping out –

“Your _screwdriver_?” Loki couldn’t help but catch it out of the corner of his eye, a part of his brain wanting to snap _What are you going to do, put up some shelves at them?! _but the Doctor was already grinning and cutting him off.

“Close. It’s my _sonic_ screwdriver.”  And then he held it high over their heads and it glowed the brightest blue.

_Oh. Oh, _a voice in Loki’s head (which, in his opinion, sounded unnecessarily impressed) supplied, just as the beasts around them started howling, shaking their heads and writhing on the floor. Some of them, the smarter ones or perhaps those with the most strength left, were already fleeing, their movements uncoordinated and half-blind. After only half a minute, only the two wolves Loki had attacked were still visible, one unmoving on the ground, the other the last one to limp away after its brethren.

For a moment, there was only silence again, the only sound that of the Doctor pocketing his screwdriver and the wind brushing over the snow. 

“…well fought,” Loki conceded with a short nod.

“Yeah,” the Doctor nodded, glancing over his shoulder at Loki with something almost like a smile, “You, t- oh, _now_ someone shows up!”

Loki’s head whipped around to see where the Doctor was gesturing. From the direction of the smoke, a group of what seemed to be more humans were now appearing, perhaps three or four people approaching without a great hurry.

“Well, _you’re_ in time,” the Doctor remarked with some sarcasm as they came into view, “We nearly got eaten alive – _although,_ ” he added, tone changing from snide to slightly intrigued in moment, “Nevermind what I just said –  because you are in fact _out_ of time, aren’t you?” he grinned at the group, triumphant. “Out of _your_ time, to be precise.” 

“Doctor?” Loki shot a look at the Time Lord, but the other was already in full swing, gesturing excitedly at the new arrivals.

“No, no, no, look! They’re wearing leathers and furs! They’re carrying axes and bows! One of them has a bear’s _head_ on his head, it’s _brilliant_!” He pointed at the indicated head on the head, grinning at Loki. “This planet’s timeline must be tied up in _loops_ by now. I mean, what are you, 7 th century? 8th?”

“Doctor,” Loki said again.

“I mean – _primitives_ , and barely half a dozen miles from the research base. I think there must be pockets of disconnected time floating around, maybe –“

“Doctor.”

“What?”

“They’re carrying wireless communication,” Loki pointed to the walkie-talkie-like device the leader (who was, in fact, wearing the bear’s head) had just pulled out and was now speaking into.

“Yeah, we’ve found a pair of two unidentified individuals. No, no idea how they aren’t dead yet. One of them is talking nonsense and the other is dressed like a musical instrument. I’m suspecting either hypothermia, or Nutriliq past its sell-by date, better get the medbay ready. Over and out.” Then he looked back up at the pair of them.

“Okay, you two jokers. Mind explaining what the hell you’re doing out here?”

“I am Loki,” Loki said, keeping his voice calm and not at all miffed, “My companion is called the Doctor. We are looking for transport to the next city,” Loki said, ignoring the raised eye brow the Doctor gave him. “Our…vehicle broke down a few miles that way.”

“Loki and Thedoctor, hm? They aren’t names from around here.”

“They’re not. But that isn’t important,” Loki said, infusing his voice with just a touch of persuasion to change the topic. The leader frowned briefly (and the Doctor sharply looked at Loki, as if he had been able to tell something was off), but then the Lakvitian’s face smoothed again, almost as if his mind was already used to magic gently pushing it into the direction it should go. “And you would be…?” Loki prompted, swiftly initiating a different line of conversation while the other was off-balance.

“Lenord,” the leader said automatically. “I’m the town head of Letzterherd. One of our scouts noticed you getting attacked by the wolves.”

“You took your sweet time helping, though, didn’t you?” the Doctor piped up, looking peevish. Lenord didn’t seem phased by the accusatory tone.

“We weren’t sure whether you were blue-eyes. In that case, better let the wolves finish you off.”

“Blue…eyes...?” Both Doctor and Loki exchanged a glance, confused brown meeting frowning emerald green, but then the Doctor’s gaze snapped right back to Lenord.

“ _You_ have blue eyes,” he pointed out. In fact, most of the population of Lakvit they had come across so far had resembled the Skandinavian stereotype on Midgard – hair and beard colours often blonde (although there was some brown and black as well), their skin pale and white, their build tall and slender, and eyes…mostly blue. He was fairly certain that even before the unnatural temperature change this area would have been close to the polar region of this planet. The way the TARDIS translated their language for him, they even sounded like they had a Northern English accent. At the Doctor’s observation, Lenord snorted, shaking his head.

“Not the kind of blue we’re talking about, lad.” Before either of them could prompt him further, he shook his head. “But anyway. This is no area to linger around in. Let’s get back to town. The medBay should check you out. You in particular,” he nodded toward the Doctor who indeed had started to shiver a little in his brown suit now that they weren’t moving any more. “Or maybe…you.” He raised an eyebrow at Loki. “How the hell aren’t you cold in that thin leather armour?”

“Pocket warmers,” Loki dead-panned, once again letting the last remnants of his magic curl through his syllables to stop that line of questioning in his tracks. “Let us go to Letzterherd.”

“Alright. Let’s be off,” Lenord agreed, waving to his men, most of whom were frowning a little as a consequence of Loki’s voice whispering in their subconscious, but turned to follow their leader and flank them easily enough. The Doctor fell into step beside him.

“You _have_ to stop doing that,” he muttered under his breath.

“Oh, as if you wouldn’t do that yourself if you could.”

“…beside the point,” the Doctor cleared his throat, also keeping his voice low enough to not be overheard. “Besides, I happen to be able to do my persuading the _old_ -fashioned way: lots of annoying talking.”

“And occasional running, it seems,” Loki added, trying hard not to let any wry humour bleed into his voice. _Banter_ was…not something he had been used to for a while now.

“Oh, always,” the Doctor nodded, a small smile tugging at his lips. Loki refused to look at it too closely, and also staunchly kept his voice from sounding… _impressed_ when he stated more than asked,

“So you noticed my little working, but it didn’t affect you.”

“Yup,” the Doctor agreed, popping the ‘p’. He threw his screwdriver in the air where it twirled and caught it to scan the surrounding area a little, but apparently didn’t find anything helpful.

Loki frowned. “Does this mean your race is impervious to mind control?”

At this, the Doctor finally threw him a glance again, voice somewhere between light conversation but also an undertone hinting at something much older and also much, much darker.

“You would find my mind a rather complicated thing to control, Loki of Asgard.”

“I’m _not_ -“ 

“Whereas you should maybe watch out for yours,” the Doctor quipped and Loki blinked, almost embarrassed at how easy the other had gotten this rise out of him. The Doctor took a breath, then, sounding somewhat more conciliatory when he spoke next.

“It’s not impossible to control the mind of a Time Lord. In fact, we do have some telepathic abilities of our own, under the right circumstances. But what you have to understand about my race…” he gazed into the distance, where something, presumably the town of Letzterherd, was coming into view. “…I’m a Time Lord. I see all that was, all that is, all that ever could be, _all the time_. The last human who shared my mind almost died. A brain not used to the strain may simply…burn.”

“I see,” Loki replied, voice carefully neutral. There had been a shiver running down his spine, but if he tried hard enough he could convince himself that it had to be because of the frosty temperatures around him.

“So…what’s with the get-up, then?” the Doctor had caught up to their leader in two long strides, and now he was nodding at the clothing of Lakvitians around him. “The fellas at the research base were at least mixing styles, but you seem to have gone completely medieval. Shortage of Gore-tex parkas in your town?”

The man walking next to Lenord raised a bushy eyebrow at him. “ _We_ , like your friend if he gets some fur around him, are adequately dressed. _You_ are the one running around in a suit-and-tie get-up at the outskirts of Wolfswald.” He gestured at Loki, who shifted in his clothes. He had instinctively summoned his full battle garb the moment the wolves had appeared and, unlike in the base yesterday, now it actually didn’t look too far out of place.

“Though it’s a bit garish,” someone from the back piped up, “You’d think with a helmet like his, he’d bonk it in doorframes a lot.”

“Stop. _Laughing_ ,” Loki grated under his breath, privately enjoying the vision of being able to lift Mjolnir just once, if only to let it land on the Doctor’s head.

“Yeah, sure, but I mean, what happened to your _old_ clothes?” the Time Lord had managed to get his face straightened out again, trying to pick up his line of questioning once more. “You have walkie-talkies. Where is the rest of your tech? Where are your guns? Humans always seem to love _those_ …”

“I have _no_ idea what you’re talking about. You do sound like a visit to the medbay would be advisable,” Lenord replied, shaking his head and throwing a glance at Loki. “Has he suffered from any concussions recently?”

“Unfortunately, no,” Loki replied conversationally. They seemed to have set foot into Letzterherd now, which was a small gathering of tightly built-together dwellings, the snow covering the low buildings too thoroughly to be sure of their exact shape. There had been a crude wooden fence erected around the dwelling, with two men posted as guards at an opening, nodding at Lenord as their small procession went through, both guards casting glances at the Doctor and him that seemed strangely opaque and made Loki feel vaguely uneasy, but he decided to ponder about it later. Nothing at all had made sense about his life during the past 24 hours and it was getting increasingly difficult to separate which details were important enough to worry over.

Now he only noted that there were only a few people around between the dwellings, all of them dressed in the same medieval garb as their ‘rescuers’, and shooting them curious glances. Much like the people, the dwelling looked far less modern than the research base. In fact, from the outside, it was hard to find any indications of modernity at all. Somewhere there were dogs barking in a kennel, their breed looking similar to Midgard huskies, Loki thought, but larger, appearing more feral. Behind them, there were sleds and harnesses, only slightly snowed in, which was probably the fastest way of transportation now. The entrances of the buildings they passed were mostly closed, the doors dark rectangles against the blinding white snow.  Two of the larger ones were slightly ajar, warm light spilling out of them, indicating that perhaps at least within, electricity was still working.

“If you are taking my…companion to the medbay, I was wondering whether I could have a look at your database for a moment?” Loki asked lightly, not even bothering to make the Mesmer in his voice subtle any more. At the Doctor’s glance, evidently torn between the disapproving and the unwillingly curious, he added under his breath, “Maps. I’m looking for maps. There are…certain landscapes and patterns of windflows that lend themselves particularly well to the kind of magic that bends weather and nature to its will like this. I might be able to track the origin of this winter spell more accurately if I can get an overview of the shape of this land.”

“Of…course,” said the younger man that had commented on his helmet earlier. “I could take you to the datacenter?” he asked, looking at Lenord, who shook his head. “No, you take Thedoctor to the medbay, Kvorn. Take those for a recharge while you’re at it,” he said, tossing the walkie-talkie to the boy. “I’ll take Loki and get him a guest account. The rest of you, help fasten the gate for the night. Come,” he said, only waving briefly at Loki, who threw the Doctor a questioning glance. The Time Lord shrugged, the universal gesture of ‘well, what’s the worst that could happen?’ before also turning to follow Kvorn, hands in the pockets of his suit and glancing around himself curiously. Loki stared after him for a moment before actually also feeling slightly exploratory and curious, turning to fall into step behind Lenord. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see the Doctor being led further into the gathering of huts, while he followed Lenord into…

“…oh,” Loki said. “This is the…datacentre?”

xxx

“Interesting architecture, your town has,” the Doctor commented, walking after the young Lakvitian. By now he was actually getting slightly cold, if only because the sun was starting to sink behind the horizon again, Lakvitian winter days apparently as short as those on Earth. He lengthened his strides to catch up with his guide.

“Interesting architecture?” Kvorn looked at him, seeming slightly confused.

“Oh, yes. Essentially huts and igloos, but half of them built with hydroflex fibre walls. Expensive stuff. Usually not invented until the 31st century in most civilisations. Great properties, though,” he stopped briefly, knocking at one frosted black wall. “Excellent for isolation against both cold and heat. Only drawback…” he sucked in some air through his teeth, “ _Usually_ they’re not moveable without some heavy equipment. How did you build this town again?” he glanced around the cluster of dwellings, pointedly devoid of anything resembling larger machinery.

The Lakvitian frowned at him. “I...don’t know. I can’t…” a strange expression came across him and he shook his head, “Sorry, what were you saying again?” 

“Nothing. Never mind,” the Doctor replied with a thoughtful look. “Is it far to the medbay?”

“No, we’re here,” Kvorn replied, opening the door to the building they had arrived at, outwardly little distinguishing it from the rest of the houses.

“Oh, the Doctor said, “This is the…medbay?”

Xxx

“Yes,” Lenord said, looking at Loki. “Is there something you didn’t expect?”

Loki glanced around the room. There was information here, certainly. The room was spacious and had several people working in it, entering and viewing data, definitely. There were the large metal cabinets he had seen countless times when having a look around the large server rooms of SHIELD and other organizations, each of them holding hundreds of harddrives and processing units, all humming quietly with cooling fans and spinning discs inside, cables slinking out their back like sleeping snakes. 

Only the cabinets in _this_ room held nothing but books, scrolls, and crumbling parchments.

“I…” Loki looked at the workers at the desks, mostly engaged with poring over parchments in the light of the waxen candles mounted onto the surface, copying information from books with feather quills, one of them squinting at something written onto actual lambskin. Loki turned to Lenord.

“…you said you would get me an account?”

xxx

“Yes, this is the medbay. Welcome to my realm,” a voice greeted the Doctor and he blinked, his eyes only slowly getting used to the darkness in the room after the bright, snowy landscape outside. Inside…it was only dimly lit, mostly by a sort of fireplace holding glowing coals, giving the air inside a smoky, stuffy quality. There were furs and leathers at his feet, some of them wolf, others he couldn’t quite place. He turned toward the person who had spoken, and it was testament to the 900 years he had already lived that his only reaction to the sight that greeted him were two slightly raised eye brows.

“…hello,” he managed to the gap-toothed, bone-necklace-wearing, wild-haired and fur-clad barefoot shaman woman standing in front of him. He smiled weakly. “I take it you’re a fan of alternative medicine?”

Xxx

“Sure thing,” Lenord said. “Hey! Meister!” he called out, startling the man closest to them and bent over a parchment; he uprighted himself hastily and fumbled with his quill.

“…y-yes?”

“Loki here needs an account to use the datacentre. Set him up, will ya?”

“Sure. Sure,” The man called Meister nodded, bending over his desk again and grabbing a fresh piece of parchment, scribbling something onto it. “I’ll mail you your username and password. Make sure to logout correctly after a session or it freezes the whole system.” He finished, handing Loki the parchment. “Here. Also take care to archive that mail once you’ve read it. I swear, as an admin, half of my time is spent resetting people’s accounts after they’ve forgotten their logins,” he chuckled to himself.

Loki unfurled and stared at the parchment, containing indeed his name and a nonsensical string of eight numbers and symbols as a ‘password’. Then he looked back at Lenord, who had actually sat down at a table, grabbed the large sheet of parchment filled with some sort of table lying there and was now carefully writing his name at the top, next to countless other names that had already been written there in the exact same fashion, running into each other and covering each other up. And below his name, in the exact careful lettering, he then proceeded to draw exactly eight little stars, joining everybody else’s ‘username’ neatly paired with their password visible as ‘*******’.

“You,” Loki said with wonder, “are all barking mad.” 

xxx

“Alternative medicine? Excuse me?” the woman snorted at the Doctor. “I didn’t study for eight years at Norskvit MedU to give out homeopathic nonsense and practice crystal healing,” she said wryly. “Are you here for an examination?”

“Uh…well….” The Doctor hedged a bit. Truthfully, it never really went down well when any human doctors discovered that he had two hearts in his chest, a respiratory bypass system in his neck and quite a few _interesting_ extra bits of brain anatomy, so he wasn’t keen to repeat the experience.

“Lenord figures he’s hit his head, or has maybe gotten malnutrition or frost fever or something. Either way, he’s saying some really weird things,” the teenager who had brought him here explained helpfully.

“Really? Almost wouldn’t have noticed,” the woman said, giving the Doctor a sharp look. “Anyway, let’s have a look at you. If you sit down, I’d like to listen to your chest.”

“Well, that’s really not-” the Doctor started to say, but then actually stopped as he saw the ‘stethoscope’ the woman had grabbed from the table.

If you could call a mushroom cap tied to a piece of string and connected to two acorns a stethoscope.

“Now take a couple of deep breaths for me,” the doctor said, putting the acorns in her ears and placing the mushroom against his chest.

The Doctor took a long look at her. When he spoke, his voice was a lot quieter and a lot more sombre.

“You have been exposed to magic a long time, haven’t you.”

 It wasn’t really a question, and the only response he got was a ‘shush! No talking!’ from the woman still moving the mushroom on his chest around. Then she leaned back.

“Alright, your heart and lungs sound in order. Not an infect, then. Lemme just jot that down…”

She turned away to a ‘desk’ in the corner of the cave-like dwelling, a broad stump of a tree, covered with pottery, an animal skull, feathers and debris. She took a feather quill and scribbled something onto a parchment.

“Kvorn?” The Doctor wasn’t actually looking at boy. “Could you hand me that walkie-talkie, please?”

“Uh, sure. It needs to be recharged, though, so it doesn’t have-“

“It’s fine,” the Doctor said, taking it and looking at it. Now that he held it, and saw it up close, it was fairly obvious that this was a painted block of wood, carefully carved and cut to look like a walkie-talkie from some distance. “It’s fine,” he Doctor repeated again, voice harder now and fingertips briefly pressing white against the nonsensical replica.

“Thank you,” the Doctor said, handing it back. He watched as the boy put it inside a stone cradle, looking very much as if somebody had tried to recreate a paleo-style phone charging station.

He stood up. “Right.” His face had darkened. “I think I have some _things_ to take care of.”

“Excuse me?” the shaman woman looked at him in irritation. “You’re still my patient. I haven’t yet finished examining you. I need to look at your head.”

“Oh, _my_ head is quite alright, I can promise you that,” the Doctor replied grimly. “And I’m going to leave now.”

“ _You_ are going to stay until I’ve finished my examination,” the doctor snapped, taking a step toward him. “I have a suspicion you have sustained trauma to your head, and I’ll need to conduct some brain imaging to verify that. I would like to take an MRI of you.”

“An MRI?” the Doctor repeated. “You mean thin-slice images of neurological structures taken by magnetic resonance imaging of living tissue, yeah? Where’s your MRI tube, then? Let me guess, is it a big log you’ve hollowed out?” he snapped, taking a step forward abruptly. The shaman woman moved back instinctively, her expression wavering between slight alarm and annoyance, but perhaps also just the slightest touch…of uncertainty? The Doctor decided to pounce on that. “ _Look_ at your surroundings, doctor,” he said, urgently, grabbing her by the shoulders. “Really _look_ at them. This isn’t a _medbay_ , this is a _cave_. This isn’t a stethoscope, this is… _madness_.” He had pitched his voice disbelievingly higher at the last bit, having grabbed the outlandish contraption from the table and shaking it. “ _Something_ has taken control of your mind, _something_ is making you forget how things should be, something is making you _regress_.” He bared his teeth at her, snarling through them, imploring her. “ _Fight_ it, doctor! See what’s really in front of you!”

She stared at him, a frown creeping over her face, as if something was warring behind her eyes. “I…” she took a breath, “I…no, this isn’t…this shouldn’t be...” her face screwed up abruptly, like someone attacked by a migraine and she threw her head back. When she looked back at him, she was blinking heavily, tears beginning to glisten at the edges of her green eyes. “What…what is _happening_ , I don’t understand-?”

“Yes!” the Doctor exclaimed, “Fight it! You’re fighting it already. You can win, doctor! Eight years at Norskvit MedU, ay? Ay?” He tried to grin at her. “You’re smart, you can _do_ this!”

“Ahhh!” the doctor cried out again, throwing her head back, only being held steady by his grip. Then she stilled in his arms, head lolling forward again, panting.

“Doctor…?” the Doctor asked softly, his grip on her arms gentling.  He ducked his head, brown eyes searching for hers, looking for any sign, any signal of realization at all. The doctor lifted her gaze.

And then she stared at the Doctor with an irritated frown, just briefly shaking her head as if an annoying insect had just buzzed around it. She took a step back, slipping out of the Doctor’s grasp.

“What are you doing?” She asked, her forehead wrinkling in consternation. “I told you, to rule out a possible trauma, I need to get an image of your brain.”

The Doctor didn’t reply. He could feel the hope slipping from him, knowing that it left his expression hard and distant. “I’m sorry,” he said instead, and meant it. “I’m so, so sorry.”

The shaman woman huffed. “I don’t need you to be sorry, love, I just need you to have a lie down and we’ll have a look at you.”

“No.” The Doctor straightened up again. His voice was pained, but determined. “I’m going to leave now. But I swear I will find who did this to you.”

He turned around toward the exit, but then stopped.

Most notably because Kvorn had just stepped into his way.

“Kvorn? What are you doing?” he asked carefully, but Kvorn wasn’t even looking at him, instead glancing over the Doctor’s shoulder back at the shaman woman. The Doctor turned to swivel back at her, eyes narrowed. “What is this supposed to be, doctor? You’re not forgetting your Hippocratic oath, I hope?”

“I was afraid this might happen,” the doctor said, swallowing. “But my medical duty obligates me to examine your head if your behavior gives me reasonable cause to suspect you might be suffering from mental conditions that may endanger you or others.” Her expression turned slightly softer. “It’s just an MRI. It won’t hurt,” she said, and for a moment, indeed sounded like a modern medical doctor trying to soothe a patient as she held one hand outstretched in a friendly manner.

Then she raised the other one which held a knife and stepped forward.

“We just…have to cut your brain into thin slices...”

_To be continued…_

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> weeeeeelll, *I'd* need a TARDIS to update my fics on a regular schedule...still, long hiatus, but maybe you like the new chapter? If you're still around, I hope you did! And of course f you read, please review :)

**Author's Note:**

> Right then! Hope you liked (and if you read, please review?:3) And if adventury nonsense crossovers with Doctor Who (and other fandoms) are your thing, you might even want to have a look at the *gasp* OTHER stories on my profile...;)


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